France’s Bardella cancels CPAC speech after Steve Bannon’s ‘Nazi’ gesture

After a speaker’s “gesture alluding to Nazi ideology,” which appeared to be a reference to conservative firebrand Steve Bannon, France’s far-right leader, said he had cancelled a planned speech at a right-wing gathering in Washington.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the president of the National Rally (RN) party claimed he was not present when Bannon, one of the organizers behind US President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, allegedly made an apparent fascist gesture.

One of the speakers made an offensive gesture that made allusion to Nazi ideology by making the comment while I was not present in the room yesterday. Therefore, I made the decision to reschedule my speech for this afternoon, according to Bardella in a statement released on Friday.

As his CPAC speech came to an end, Bannon slammed briefly as he urged the audience to “fight, fight, fight” as he suggested Trump could run for a third term under the terms of the Constitution.

Bannon denied making a fascist salute on Friday and said it was a “wave to the crowd” in a French journalist interview.

Bannon claimed that Bardella was a “wimp” if he canceled his appearance because of the gesture in a Le Point interview.

“If he’s that worried about it … then he is unworthy and will never lead France”, Bannon said.

Bannon’s gesture, which was widely criticized as a Nazi salute, resembled one made by tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk last month.

The former Trump strategist and right-wing media executive&nbsp, served a four-month sentence last year for defying a Congressional subpoena to testify about the January 6, 2021, riot at the United States Capitol.

Bardella, 29, became RN leader in 2022 taking over from Marine Le Pen, and leads the Patriots group in the European Parliament.

Le Pen has remained party leader in parliament. In the previous two presidential elections in France, she finished second, and she is expected to run for president in 2027.

Since taking over from him in 2011, Le Pen has worked hard to make the party her father Jean-Marie co-founded more appealing to voters. In order to expand its voter base, the organization removed members who had been accused of anti-Semitism and appointed the telegenic Bardella.

After President Emmanuel Macron disbanded the lower chamber after Le Pen’s party won the majority in European elections, the RN won a record number of seats in the chamber in snap elections last year.

At a European far-right meeting in Madrid earlier this month, Le Pen adopted the slogan “Make Europe Great Again”, in a nod to Trump’s rallying cry “Make America Great Again”, and hailed Trump’s “tornado” in the US as showing the way forward for the European Union.