PARIS: France’s far-right leader Jordan Bardella said on Friday he had cancelled his speech at a right-wing meeting in Washington after a “gesture alluding to Nazi ideology” by conservative firebrand Steve Bannon.

The president of France’s National Rally (RN) party, who is in the US capital, said he was not present when Bannon — one of the masterminds behind US President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign — made a gesture that has been described as a Nazi salute on Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Bannon briefly held out a stiff arm at the conference as he called on the audience to “fight, fight, fight”. “I had been invited… to make a speech on the links between the United States and France, as well as the recent electoral dynamic of patriot parties in Europe,” Bardella said in a statement.

“Yesterday, while I was not present in the room, one of the speakers out of provocation allowed himself a gesture alluding to Nazi ideology. I therefore took the immediate decision to cancel my speech that had been scheduled this afternoon,” he said. An adviser to Bardella confirmed that he was speaking about Bannon.

Bardella, now 29, became RN leader in 2022, taking over from Marine Le Pen. He also leads the Patriots group in the European Parliament. But it is Le Pen, who was runner-up in the last two French presidential elections and has remained party leader in parliament, who is expected to make the next presidential run in 2027.

Le Pen has worked hard to render the party her father co-founded more palatable to voters since she took over from him in 2011, including by purging members accused of anti-Semitism and appointing the telegenic Bardella to expand its voter base.

The RN won a record number of seats in parliament in snap polls last year after President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the lower chamber when Le Pen’s party topped the poll in European elections. At a European far-right meeting earlier this month, Le Pen hailed Trump’s “tornado” in the United States as showing the way forward for the European Union.

She said the world was facing “a truly global tipping point” at the meeting in Madrid, which had adopted the slogan “Make Europe Great Again” in a nod to Trump’s rallying cry “Make America Great Again”. But Bardella in January posed a limit to his party’s support for Trump’s ideas. “Liking Donald Trump’s patriotism does not mean being the vassal of the United States,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2025