While Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel pledge greater cooperation and more European integration, the far right in France and Germany are moving toward an alliance of their own.
Although France's National Rally (RN) and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) oppose more power for the EU, they have not been best friends up until now. They belong to different groups in the European Parliament and have not seen eye to eye in key policy areas, including economics.
But the parties' main representatives in the European Parliament, Nicolas Bay and Jörg Meuthen, are increasingly close, with Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) encouraging them to discuss a future alliance after May's election, according to officials close to the discussions.
A Franco-German far-right entente would be the centerpiece of a bigger effort, led behind the scenes by the League party of Italy's Matteo Salvini, to end long-standing divisions among Eurosceptics and build a single right-wing populist bloc in the next European Parliament. Such a bloc would aim to wield influence on EU politics and policy in a way Eurosceptics have previously been unable to do.
There's a long way to go before any such alliance could emerge. Eurosceptics have often quarrelled with each other and frequently don't vote the same way in the European Parliament. But even the prospect of such a bloc alarms much of Europe's political mainstream, which regards the parties involved as racist and dangerous.
Neither the National Rally — the former National Front, led by Marine Le Pen — nor the AfD is saying much openly about increasing cooperation. But they're not ruling out a broad group in the next European Parliament that would include them both. [...]
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