French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld would choose the RN in the event of a duel between the right-wing populists of the Rassemblement National (RN) and the left-wing populists in the upcoming parliamentary elections in France. He would make this decision “without hesitation,” Klarsfeld told the French television station LCI on Saturday evening. The RN has “made itself better” and “supports the Jews,” added the 88-year-old, who has been fighting against Nazis and anti-Semitism for decades together with his German wife Beate Klarsfeld.
French President Emmanuel Macron called for new elections a week ago following the RN’s victory in the European elections. If none of the candidates wins an absolute majority in the respective constituencies in the first round on June 30, the winners of the first round will compete in a run-off on July 7. This will also likely involve direct duels between the left-wing populists of La France Insoumise (LFI) and the right-wing populists of Marine Le Pen.
LFI is a “decidedly anti-Jewish” party, said Klarsfeld, the son of a Holocaust victim. “I would vote for Rassemblement National because I have fought all my life to defend Jewish culture of remembrance, persecuted Jews and the State of Israel, and because I am facing an extreme left dominated by La France Insoumise, which reeks of anti-Semitism and is clearly anti-Zionist,” he explained.
The parties on the far right in Europe, on the other hand, have turned away from anti-Semitism and support the Jews, added the Nazi hunter, who has received multiple awards for his life’s work. In the first round of voting, he would vote “as always for a centrist party.”
Klarsfeld and his German wife Beate were awarded the highest order of the French Legion of Honor by Macron during a visit to Berlin in May. The president mentioned the couple’s years of tireless work to track down Nazis and their collaborators and bring them to justice. The Klarsfelds had helped to expose “the French authorities’ complicity in the arrest of foreign and stateless Jews.”
Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of the Front National and father of Marine Le Pen, had repeatedly described the Nazi gas chambers as a “detail” of history. The daughter and current RN parliamentary group leader, who is trying to lead her party away from the far right, expelled her father from the party in 2015. In 2018, she renamed the party Rassemblement National.
