Marine Le Pen, visiting Mayotte on Saturday, said she was
"angry"
with her German ally in the European Parliament, the AfD, which
"would be better off dealing with Germany's problems"
instead of questioning the belonging of the archipelago to France.
In a written question to the Bundestag this week, the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) called on the federal government
“to take a position on the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly according to which France must return the Mayotte archipelago to the 'Union of the Comoros'
.
“The AfD would do better to take care of Germany's problems and I am angry about this situation
,” declared the leader of the RN upon her arrival.
“I will explain to them the reason why the Mahorais have three times already expressed their wish to be French
,” she added. When Comoros declared its independence, Mayotte chose to remain in France through two referendums in 1974 and 1976. A third referendum in 2009 made Mayotte a department.
“Totally disagree”
A spokesperson for the AfD, Matthias Moosdorf, explained to AFP that his party had
“not imagined that the RN would be upset by this question”
and that this question was aimed at ambivalence, according to the AfD, practiced by the German government on self-determination referendums, the latter not recognizing the result of that organized in Crimea in 2014.
“This parallel with Crimea is particularly awkward
,” judged Ms. Le Pen, who intends to give her allies
“ some lessons in geopolitics
.
Relations between the two parties, which sit in the same
“Identity and Democracy”
group in the European Parliament, have been strained since the revelation of a secret plan for the mass expulsion of foreigners and German citizens deemed non-integrated if the AfD came to power. The affair provoked large-scale demonstrations against the far right throughout Germany. And Marine Le Pen declared that she
“totally disagreed”
with this idea.
Furthermore, on relations with the Comoros from which many immigrants arriving in Mayotte come, Marine Le Pen called for
“whistling the end of recreation”
, accusing them of
“wanting to recover Mayotte through demography”
. She mentioned retaliatory measures such as freezing the assets of Comorian leaders or removing visas.