Populist leaders at loggerheads in their attempt to forge Europe-wide alliance
POPULIST parties are struggling to forge a Europe-wide alliance that they hope will change the EU from within and tempt Britain to remain in a looser alliance of nations, French sources say.
A leadership struggle among the populists has pitted France’s Marine Le Pen against Italy’s Matteo Salvini.
Ms Le Pen, head of the National Rally, has been offended by Mr Salvini’s “condescending” tone since the leader of the hard-right League party became Italy’s deputy prime minister, the political sources said.
Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, is another possible contender to lead the grouping. But he does not want his anti-immigration Fidesz party to break definitively with the main conservative group in the European parliament, the European People’s Party, which has suspended it over concerns about undemocratic practices.
Mr Orbán reportedly doubts Ms Le Pen’s ability to win power in France, and there are concerns about her legal troubles over her party’s alleged mis- use of European Parliament funds.
A new alliance of European nationalist parties was announced this month by Mr Salvini after a meeting in Milan.
But neither Ms Pen nor Mr Orbán turned up, and Poland’s Eurosceptic governing Law and Justice party was not represented. It is suspicious of Ms Le Pen’s and Mr Salvini’s close links with Vladimir Putin.
Nicolas Lebourg, a French political historian specialising in the far-right, said the leadership struggle was “a three-way battle between Le Pen, Orbán and Salvini over who becomes the chief in Europe. Le Pen suffers from a certain lack of political flair and weakness in policy and strategy”.