Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is driving a wedge through Europe’s nationalist movement, winning historic electoral gains at home while facing an active freeze from key continental allies. Following a string of September state elections—including a 43.8% surge in Saxony-Anhalt that left the party three seats shy of an outright majority—parts of the European far-right are celebrating, while others are deliberately cutting ties.
The French National Rally Breakup
France’s National Rally (RN) has severed its once-close partnership with the AfD, marking a major split within the European Parliament’s nationalist bloc. Marine Le Pen’s party broke formal ties in May 2024, refusing renewed cooperation after two major controversies inside the German party. First, a senior AfD figure minimized the criminal role of Hitler’s SS paramilitary group during World War II. Second, a secret plan by the German party to expel people of foreign origin en masse emerged.
These developments clashed directly with Le Pen’s ongoing “detoxification” strategy. Ahead of the 2027 French presidential election, the RN has sought to scrub its brand of overt xenophobia and antisemitism, opening its doors to mixed-race citizens. Party lawmaker Franck Allisio confirmed the rift to television channel LCI on September 6, stating, “We have real problems on both style and substance. We do not consider them to be our allies in Germany.”
Diverging Strategies Across Europe
The European far-right is sharply fractured over how to handle the rising German nationalist force. While the RN and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy keep the AfD at arm’s length—with Meloni prioritizing influence within the European political mainstream—other nationalist leaders have openly embraced the party’s momentum.
Following the Saxony-Anhalt vote, Geert Wilder of the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom, Viktor Orbán of Hungary’s Fidesz, and Santiago Abascal of Spain’s Vox offered public congratulations. Abascal hailed the AfD’s advance as a “great hope for Germany and Europe.” In France, Éric Zemmour’s more radical Reconquest party also welcomed the results, with MEP Sarah Knafo posting on X that an “entire continent is rising up.”
Extremism Classifications and Domestic Backlash
Grégoire Roos, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia programs at the Chatham House think tank, points out that the AfD has made no effort to purge its extremist factions despite winning broad voter support. Unlike the National Rally, which worked to eliminate morally disturbing elements, the AfD has not conducted a similar internal clean-up.
Roos notes that figures within the German party remain comfortable speaking about the Nazi era as though not everything from that period should be discarded. The AfD’s co-leaders have consistently rejected accusations of right-wing extremism, characterizing Germany’s domestic intelligence agency’s classification of the party as an attempt to distort democratic competition.
Despite being expelled from the Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament, the AfD helped establish a new alliance called the Europe of Sovereign Nations. This smaller, isolated coalition groups the AfD with nationalist formations, including Reconquest, Bulgaria’s Revival, Hungary’s Our Homeland Movement, Poland’s New Hope, and Slovakia’s Republic Movement.