NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, after nixing a pair of executive orders that dealt with antisemitism and boycotting Israel, defended his actions amid fallout that has included sharp criticism from the Israeli government and concerns from local Jewish groups. As one of his first acts as mayor, Mamdani declined to renew two executive orders signed by former Mayor Eric Adams: One that adopted a broad definition of antisemitism and another that prohibited city employees from engaging in the boycott, divest and sanctions movement against Israel. The defunct orders were part of a suite of mayoral decrees signed by Adams that Mamdani revoked. During an unrelated press briefing Friday, Mamdani pledged to protect Jewish New Yorkers, but did not go into much detail about why he tossed the orders. “My administration will also be marked by a city government that will be relentless in its efforts to combat hate and division, and we will showcase that by fighting hate across the city,” he said. “That includes fighting the scourge of antisemitism by actually funding hate crime prevention, by celebrating our neighbors and by practicing a politics of universality.” As for the definition of antisemitism adopted by Adams, which was promulgated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Mamdani noted that many Jewish organizations in the city do not abide by the interpretation, which, for example, equates some criticisms of Israel’s actions as antisemitic. “I also know that a number, as you said, of leading Jewish organizations have immense concerns around this definition,” Mamdani said, addressing a reporter who had asked about the orders. Mamdani himself has supported the boycott, divest and sanctions movement against Israel, making his move to toss an executive order banning it in city government unsurprising. Upon taking office Thursday, Mamdani was required to sift through years of Adams-era executive orders, choosing to renew, revise or revoke them. The new mayor opted to nix every executive order signed after Adams was indicted on federal bribery charges and the motivation for his actions in office came under suspicion. However, there were several exceptions, including a decree to establish the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism and another that prohibits protests within a certain distance of houses of worship. Mamdani took office Thursday with deep rifts remaining between his administration and some members of the city’s Jewish community who have been critical of his past comments opposing Israeli military action in Gaza and its right to exist as an explicitly Jewish state. On Friday, a collection of Jewish groups, including the UJA-Federation of New York, the New York chapter of the Jewish Community Relations Council and the New York Board of Rabbis, released a statement arguing Mamdani’s actions took away two significant protections against antisemitism, though they praised him for retaining the other two elements of Adams’ policy. “Our community will be looking for clear and sustained leadership that demonstrates a serious commitment to confronting antisemitism and ensures that the powers of the mayor’s office are used to promote safety and unity, not to advance divisive efforts such as BDS,” the statement read. “Singling out Israel for sanctions is not the way to make Jewish New Yorkers feel included and safe, and will undermine any words to that effect.” Comments from the Israeli government were more pointed. (Mamdani has expressed his desire to arrest Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the basis of an International Criminal Court warrant.) “On his very first day as New York City Mayor Mamdani shows his true face: He scraps the IHRA definition of antisemitism and lifts restrictions on boycotting Israel,” Israel’s foreign ministry said in a post. “This isn’t leadership. It’s antisemitic gasoline on an open fire.”

Israel’s foreign ministry accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of antisemitism on Friday, escalating tensions with the progressive leader within hours of him formally taking office. Israel’s criticism focused on Mamdani’s revocation of executive orders issued under his predecessor Eric Adams, including policies supportive of Israel. The Adams-era measures had prevented city officials from pursuing punitive economic policies such as boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. They had also adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which the Adams’ administration said identified “demonizing Israel and holding it to double standards as forms of contemporary antisemitism.” “On his very first day as New York City Mayor Mamdani shows his true face: He scraps the IHRA definition of antisemitism and lifts restrictions on boycotting Israel. This isn’t leadership. It’s antisemitic gasoline on an open fire,” Israel’s foreign ministry said in a post. Mamdani became mayor just after midnight on New Year’s Eve, beginning a term that Democrats hope will energize the party ahead of the 2026 midterms. The 34-year-old democratic socialist campaigned on an ambitious but costly agenda, including universal free childcare and free buses, financed in part by higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Friday’s public rebuke from Israel’s government adds an international dimension to a controversy already unfolding at home. On Thursday, Jewish civil rights groups criticized the removal of posts related to combating antisemitism from the official @NYCMayor X account shortly after Mamdani assumed office, warning that the move risked sending the wrong signal at a particularly sensitive moment. Mamdani has repeatedly rejected accusations of antisemitism, arguing his criticism of Israel is rooted in human rights concerns. He has pledged to protect New York’s Jewish community, while maintaining his outspoken views on Middle East policy. That solidarity with New York’s Jewish community was repeated in his swearing-in ceremony, where celebrated the city’s diversity by quipping: “Where else could a Muslim kid like me grow up eating bagels and lox every Sunday?” Mamdani does, however, support bond disinvestment to pressure Israel, and says he does not believe Israel should exist as a “Jewish state.” Israeli officials have long viewed Mamdani with suspicion. Following his election victory in November Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel described the outcome as “deeply concerning,” pointing to Mamdani’s past activism and rhetoric. Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu slammed Mamdani’s Jewish supporters, accusing them of having “raised their hands in support of antisemitism in the heart of America.”

LONDON — Dorian Gerhold already had his doubts about plans for a Holocaust memorial in the heart of Westminster when he discovered something unexpected. “I spent a morning at the London archives, and it was very easy to find that there was actually an act of Parliament that said that the southern part of Victoria Tower gardens could not be built on,” he recalled. The retired parliamentary clerk, who for 33 years walked to work through the small strip of green on the north side of the River Thames, had begun researching the proposals for a memorial out of curiosity about how the site was chosen. His discovery in 2018 proved a serious setback to an initiative begun four years earlier under David Cameron’s government, which set up a commission to plan a monument to ensure that “in 50 years’ time the memory and lessons of the Holocaust will be as strong and as vibrant as today.” Twelve years and several changes of prime minister later, construction on the site, on the north side of the River Thames, has not yet begun. Ministers were forced to legislate to repeal the building ban discovered by Gerhold — and that bill is still crawling its way through parliament. Far from commanding national consensus, the endeavor has driven a wedge between politicians, local residents and Jews in Britain. Supporters believe the project has already been delayed for too long. They say its completion is all the more urgent because the Holocaust is receding further from living memory. But its vociferous critics fear the memorial will oversimplify the U.K.’s relationship with its past, and fudge questions about present-day antisemitism.  Martin Stern, who survived concentration camps at Westerbork and Theresienstadt, told POLITICO there is “parochialism” to the way the Holocaust is remembered today. “I narrowly survived because, for some reason, my name and my sister’s name were not on the list when children were being loaded for the train to Auschwitz. It’s very close to me, but that doesn’t mean I want everybody just to be deeply immersed in only about me.” ‘STRIKING AND PROMINENT’ There is almost no aspect of the memorial, which will feature 23 large bronze fin structures and an underground learning center in the park next to the Palace of Westminster, which isn’t contested. Most hotly debated of all is the location. A site was not specified in the original Commission report, which stated only that the new memorial should be “striking and prominent.” A year after the report, Cameron announced it would be built in Victoria Tower Gardens to “show the importance Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust.” The choice sparked consternation among local residents and users of the park, who complained it would dominate the space and detract from its existing monuments, the Burghers of Calais and a memorial to the anti-slavery campaigner Richard Buxton. There is almost no aspect of the memorial, which will feature 23 large bronze fin structures and an underground learning center in the park next to the Palace of Westminster, which isn’t contested. | Vuk Valcic/Sopa/Images/LightRocket via Getty Images After the government threw its weight behind the Westminster location, it was subject to several legal challenges, which were decided against the site and eventually necessitated legislation to override the relevant statute.  Others have criticised the placement on security grounds. Alex Carlile, a lawyer, crossbench peer and former reviewer of counter-terror legislation, has argued that placing it so close to parliament is a “lure to terrorists.” The design and cost of the memorial have attracted further criticism. The fin-like structure was devised by David Adjaye, a renowned British-Ghanaian architect who has since faced allegations of sexual harassment, which he denies.  Ruth Deech, a crossbench peer whose father arrived in Britain after fleeing Poland at the start of the Second World War, said: “As soon I saw the design and the concept, I felt instinctively it did not do honor to my grandparents, my family, because the design is meaningless.” “The Jewish tradition of remembering departed souls would be a light,” she added. “That’s what you do for people who die. You don’t build something that looks like a dinosaur’s rib cage.” The memorial, which will be partly funded by the taxpayer with additional money from donations, has ballooned in cost from an estimated £50 million at its inception to £138.8 million in 2023. HOW TO REMEMBER The concept of a “learning center” has also proved to be a fraught one.  A year after the report, Cameron announced it would be built in Victoria Tower Gardens to “show the importance Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust.” | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Stern balked at the term, arguing: “The concept of education is much deeper than the concept of learning… If you’re having a center in London that is intended to teach people about these things, to provide a national resource, it needs to be much bigger.” Deech warned that it will give “a very, very limited, almost misleading account of Britain and the Holocaust when what we really need is an overall exposition of a whole of Jewish life in Britain over 1,000 years.” There was until recently a Jewish Museum based in north London, which closed its doors two years ago due to lack of funds. Opponents have raised concerns about the contents and focus of the learning center — in particular, the prospect that it could become a more generalized exhibit about genocides, which does not treat the Holocaust as distinct. Members of the House of Lords recently passed an amendment designed to ensure it would specifically commemorate the mass slaughter of Jews by the Nazis. Discussions about how to enact this requirement are ongoing, according to one person working on the bill, granted anonymity to speak freely — part of the reason it has not yet been scheduled to return to parliament. But Deech’s more fundamental fear is that the effect of the Westminster memorial will be to “package the Holocaust in an airtight box — it was 80 years ago. It was German. It was nothing to do with us. Much better today. And that is simply not working anymore.” At this point, the memorial’s historical focus smashes up against the present. Some argue it will make present-day antisemitism worse, locating it conveniently in the past while acting as a physical lightning rod for anti-Jewish hatred. One lawyer, who has carried out research on legal challenges to the site and asked to remain anonymous due to his other public duties, claimed it would “protect the dead but not the living.” URGENT CASE Yet those who have been involved with the project from the beginning insist it is all the more needed in light of the October 7, 2022 attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza. Eric Pickles, a Tory peer who until recently served as the U.K.’s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, said that the objection the memorial would not engage with wider antisemitism “has no basis in reality.” He told POLITICO the site would have “a great importance in terms of getting out a very solid message against antisemitism” and would “ensure that the narrative after the last survivor is gone is one that’s going to be built on truth and honesty and verifiable fact.” Pickles defended Victoria Tower Gardens as “exactly the right location, right next to Parliament, because ultimately, the Holocaust shows you what happens when governments decide to use all the resources of the state to kill their citizens.” He also stressed that opposition was not universal among local residents, and mostly amounted to “special pleading” by people “who didn’t want this memorial to be near their property.” Olivia Marks-Woldman, chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, highlighted the link between the function of the memorial and its location. She said that “to have a physical, tangible memorial in the heart of London will be a focal point for a lot of the learning and the commemorations and a reminder of how the Holocaust impacted in Britain.” Marks-Woldman resisted the idea that it will paint Britain’s wartime record in a wholly positive light, pointing out that “while Kindertransportees have rebuilt their lives here… their parents weren’t allowed in, and mostly their parents were murdered.” The long-running debate over the monument has perhaps touched on something wider about the British fondness for raising objections, particularly over building projects. As Danny Finkelstein, a Conservative peer who has recently taken on American far-right commentator Nick Fuentes, has written: “Really you can find some sort of case against everything. Even against creating a small exhibition centre for people to learn how bad the Nazis were.” Barring a massive volte-face, plans for the memorial will clear their legal hurdles this year and work will begin — but deep skepticism about the wisdom of the project is unlikely to fade.

At least 12 people are dead after two gunmen opened fire at Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach in an attack authorities said targeted the Jewish community during a major holiday celebration. One of the shooters is among the dead while the second is in a critical condition, local police said in a statement. More people have been injured, among them two police officers, authorities said. Police are investigating whether any other assailants were involved. “This attack was designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community, on the first day of Hanukkah,” said Chris Minns, the premier of the state of New South Wales. “What should have been a night of peace and joy celebrated in that community with families and supporters, has been shattered by this horrifying evil attack.” The attack occurred as hundreds of members of Sydney’s Jewish community gathered in Bondi Beach for the annual Hanukkah celebration, among the biggest events of the local Jewish calendar. The event, attended by many families, features the lighting of the menorah, a petting zoo, a children’s climbing wall and other activities. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his “thoughts are with every person affected.” Israel’s President Isaac Herzog called the attack terrorism: “Our hearts go out to our Jewish sisters and brothers in Sydney who have been attacked by vile terrorists as they went to light the first candle of Chanukah.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sent “heartfelt condolences” and said “Europe stands with Australia and Jewish communities everywhere,” in a statement. “This appalling act of violence against the Jewish community must be unequivocally condemned,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat. The incident is Australia’s worst mass shooting in decades, after the nation’s gun laws were tightened in response to a 1996 massacre in the state of Tasmania.

BERLIN — U.S. President Donald Trump’s overtures to the European far right have never been more overt, but the EU’s biggest far-right parties are split over whether that is a blessing or a curse.  While Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has welcomed Trump’s moral support, viewing it as a way to win domestic legitimacy and end its political ostracization, France’s National Rally has kept its distance — viewing American backing as a potential liability. The differing reactions from the two parties, which lead the polls in the EU’s biggest economies, stem less from varying ideologies than from distinct domestic political calculations. AfD leaders in Germany celebrated the Trump administration’s recent attacks on Europe’s mainstream political leaders and approval of “patriotic European parties” that seek to fight Europe’s so-called “civilizational erasure.” “This is direct recognition of our work,” AfD MEP Petr Bystron said in a statement after the Trump administration released its National Security Strategy — which, in parts, sounds like it could have been a manifesto of a far-right European party — warning that Europe may be “unrecognizable” in two decades due to migration and a loss of national identities. “The AfD has always fought for sovereignty, remigration, and peace — precisely the priorities that Trump is now implementing,” added Bystron, who will be among a group of politicians in his party traveling to Washington this week to meet with MAGA Republicans. One of the AfD’s national leaders, Alice Weidel, also celebrated Trump’s security strategy. “That’s why we need the AfD!” Weidel said in a post after the document was released. By contrast, National Rally leaders in France were generally silent. Thierry Mariani, a member of the party’s national board, explained Trump hardly seemed like an ideal ally. “Trump treats us like a colony — with his rhetoric, which isn’t a big deal, but especially economically and politically,” he told POLITICO. The party’s national leaders, Mariani added, see “the risk of this attitude from someone who now has nothing to fear, since he cannot be re-elected, and who is always excessive and at times ridiculous.”  AFD’S AMERICAN DREAM It’s no coincidence that Bystron is part of a delegation of AfD politicians set to meet members of Trump’s MAGA camp in Washington this week. Bystron has been among the AfD politicians increasingly looking to build ties to the Trump administration to win support for what they frame as a struggle against political persecution and censorship at home. This is an argument members of the Trump administration clearly sympathize with. When Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declared the AfD to be extremist earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the move “tyranny in disguise.” During the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President JD Vance urged mainstream politicians in Europe to knock down the “firewalls” that shut out far-right parties from government. “This is direct recognition of our work,” AfD MEP Petr Bystron said in a statement after the Trump administration released its National Security Strategy. | Britta Pedersen/Picture Alliance via Getty Images AfD leaders have therefore made a simple calculation: Trump’s support may lend the party a sheen of acceptability that will help it appeal to more voters while, at the same time, making it politically harder for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives to refuse to govern in coalition with their party. This explains why AfD polticians will be in the U.S. this week seeking political legitimacy. On Friday evening, Markus Frohnmaier, deputy leader of the AfD parlimentary group, will be an “honored guest” at a New York Young Republican Club gala, which has called for a “new civic order” in Germany. NATIONAL RALLY SEES ‘NOTHING TO GAIN’ In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally has distanced itself from the AfD and Trump as part of a wider effort to present itself as more palatable to mainstream voters ahead of a presidential election in 2027 the party believes it has a good chance of winning. As part of the effort to clean up its image, Le Pen pushed for the AfD to be ejected from the Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament last year following a series of scandals that made it something of a pariah. At the same time, National Rally leaders have calculated that Trump can’t help them at home because he is deeply unpopular nationally. Even the party’s supporters view the American president negatively. An Odoxa poll released after the 2024 American presidential election found that 56 percent of National Rally voters held a negative view of Trump. In the same survey, 85 percent of voters from all parties described Trump as “aggressive,” and 78 percent as “racist.”  Jean-Yves Camus, a political scientist and leading expert on French and international far-right movements, highlighted the ideological gaps separating Le Pen from Trump — notably her support for a welfare state and social safety nets, as well as her limited interest in social conservatism and religion.  “Trumpism is a distinctly American phenomenon that cannot be transplanted to France,” Camus said. “Marine Le Pen, who is working on normalization, has no interest in being linked with Trump. And since she is often accused of serving foreign powers — mostly Russia — she has nothing to gain from being branded ‘Trump’s agent in France.’” 

Remigijus Žemaitaitis, leader of Lithuania’s populist Dawn of Nemunas ruling coalition party, has been found guilty of incitement to hatred against Jews and downplaying the Holocaust in a decision by the Vilnius Regional Court. In a Thursday ruling the court said his public statements had “mocked Jewish people, denigrated them, and encouraged hatred toward the Jewish community.” Žemaitaitis was fined €5,000 — a fraction of what the prosecutor had requested — and is at risk of being stripped of his seat in parliament. “This is a politicized decision,” Žemaitaitis said, while indicating he will appeal. The court considered several social media posts in which Žemaitaitis blamed Jews for the “destruction of our nation” and for “contributing to the torture, deportation, and killing of Lithuanians.” After Israeli authorities demolished a Palestinian school on May 7, 2023, Žemaitaitis wrote: “After such events, it is no wonder that statements like this emerge: ‘A Jew climbed the ladder and accidentally fell. Take, children, a stick and kill that little Jew.'” His lawyer, Egidija Belevičienė, told local media that while her client’s remarks “may have been inappropriate and may have shocked some people, they did not reach the level of danger for which a person is punished with a criminal penalty that necessarily results in a criminal record.” Lithuania’s ruling Social Democrats, who share a coalition with Žemaitaitis, have yet to respond to the ruling, noting that it “is not yet final.” In a Thursday social media post the party said any form of antisemitism, hate speech or Holocaust denial “is unacceptable to us and incompatible with our values.” Still, Žemaitaitis’ record of antisemitic comments was known to the Social Democrats when they formed a coalition with his party last November. He had resigned his seat in parliament the previous April after the country’s Constitutional Court ruled he had violated the constitution by making antisemitic statements on social media. “The Social Democrats were not bothered last year … nor are they bothered now,” said Simonas Kairys, deputy leader of the Liberal Movement opposition party. Laurynas Kasčiūnas, chair of the opposition Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, accused the Social Democrats of suffering from Stockholm syndrome. “They have been taken hostage by Žemaitaitis, and they’re beginning to like it,” he said. The country’s political opposition is calling on the Social Democrats to sever ties with Žemaitaitis — and is threatening to kick him out of the country’s parliament if they won’t. “The Social Democrats could simply tell Žemaitaitis ‘goodbye,’” Kasčiūnas said. If they fail to cut ties after the court’s ruling becomes final, he added, “an impeachment initiative will emerge in the Seimas.” Žemaitaitis has made a name for himself recently for more than antisemitism. In November he tabled a draft law to simplify the process of firing the head of the country’s LRT public broadcaster, sparking public outrage that the government was preparing to install a political flunky in the post. A street protest is scheduled for Dec. 9; as of Thursday over 124,000 people had signed an online petition against the draft law in a country of 2.8 million.

BERLIN — Before Leif-Erik Holm became one of the German far right’s leading figures, he was a morning radio DJ in his home state in eastern Germany celebrated, by his station, for making “the best jokes far and wide.” Ahead of regional elections across Germany next year, Holm, 55, is now set to become the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s top candidate in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a largely rural area bordering Poland and the Baltic Sea. With polls showing the AfD in first place at 38 percent support in the state, it’s one of the places where the party — now the largest opposition group in Germany’s national parliament — is within striking distance of taking significant governing power for the first time since its formation over a decade ago. Holm embodies the type of candidate at least some AfD leaders increasingly want at the top of the ticket. With an avuncular demeanor, he eschews the kind of incendiary rhetoric other politicians in the party have embraced and says he seeks dialogue with his political opponents. Asked what his party would do if it takes power in his state next year, Holm rattled off some innocuous-sounding proposals: invest more in education, including STEM subjects, and ensure children of immigrants learn German before they start school. “I’m actually a nice guy,” Holm said. Underneath the guy-next-door image, however, there’s a clear political calculus. National co-head of the party, Alice Weidel, is attempting something of a rebrand, believing that the AfD won’t be able to make the jump to real political power unless it moves away from candidates who embrace openly extreme positions. That means moving away from controversial leaders like Björn Höcke — found guilty by a court for uttering a banned slogan used by Adolf Hitler’s SA storm troopers — and Maximilian Krah, who last year said he would “never say that anyone who wore an SS uniform was automatically a criminal.” Instead, the preferred candidate, at least for Weidel and people in her camp, is someone like Holm, who can present a more sanitized face of the party. But the makeover is proving to be only skin deep, and even Weidel, despite her national leadership role, can’t prevent the mask from slipping. NEW LOOK, SAME POLITICS Since its creation in 2013 as a Euroskeptic party, the AfD has grown more extreme, mobilizing its increasingly radicalized base primarily around the issue of migration. Earlier this year, Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency — which is tasked with surveilling groups found to be anti-constitutional — deemed the AfD an extremist group. Weidel is now trying to tamp down on the open extremism. The effort is intended to make the AfD more palatable to mainstream conservatives — and to make it harder for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right alliance to refuse to govern in coalition with the party by maintaining the postwar “firewall” around the far right. Weidel’s push to present a more polished party image isn’t necessarily supported by large swaths of the AfD’s rank and file — especially in its strongholds in the former East Germany — who point to the fact that the party’s political ascent coincided with its radicalization. The argument isn’t without merit. Despite its rising extremism, the party came in second in the snap federal election early this year — the best national showing for a far-right party since World War II. The party is now ahead of Merz’s conservatives in polls. Alice Weidel’s push to present a more polished party image isn’t necessarily supported by large swaths of the AfD’s rank and file. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images  Weidel is nevertheless pressing ahead with her drive to try to soften the AfD’s image. As part of this effort, Weidel has tried to somewhat shift her party from its proximity to the Kremlin — seeking closer ties with Republicans in the U.S. From now on, the party will “fight alongside the white knight rather than the black knight,” a person familiar with Weidel’s thinking said. In another remake attempt, earlier this year, an extremist youth group affiliated with the AfD dissolved itself to avert a possible ban that might have damaged the party. Last weekend, a new youth wing was formed that party leaders will have direct control over. Other far-right parties across Europe have made their own rebranding efforts. In France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen has attempted to normalize her party — an effort referred to as dédiabolisation, or “de-demonization” — ditching the open antisemitism of its founders. As part of that push, Le Pen moved to disassociate her party from the AfD in the European Parliament. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has moderated her earlier anti-EU, pro-Russia stances. For the AfD, however, the attempted transformation is less a matter of substance — and more a matter of optics. Underneath Weidel’s effort to burnish her party’s reputation, many of its most extreme voices continue to hold sway. THE POLISHED RADICAL Perhaps no AfD leader embodies that tension more than Ulrich Siegmund, the lead candidate for the party in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where it is polling first at 40 percent support ahead of a regional vote next September. It’s here, in this small state of just over 2 million people, where AfD leaders pin most of their hopes of getting into state government next year — possibly even with an absolute majority. Like Holm, Siegmund too tries to cultivate a regular-guy persona. Even members of opposing parties in the state parliament describe him as friendly and approachable. With over half a million followers on TikTok, he reaches more people than any other state politician in Germany. Perhaps no AfD leader embodies that tension more than Ulrich Siegmund, the lead candidate for the party in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. | Emmanuele Contini/NurPhoto via Getty Images At the same time, Siegmund is clearly connected to the extreme fringe of the party. He was one of the attendees at a secret meeting of right-wing extremists in which a “master plan” to deport migrants and “unassimilated citizens” was reportedly discussed. When news of the meeting broke last year, it sparked sustained protests against the far right across Germany and temporarily dented the AfD’s popularity in polls. Speaking to POLITICO, Siegmund minimized the secret meeting as “coffee klatsch,” claiming the real scandal is how the media overblew the episode. He described himself not as a dangerous extremist — but as a regular guy concerned for his country. “I am a normal citizen, taxpayer and resident of this country who simply wants a better home, especially for his children, for his family, for all of our children,” Siegmund said. “Because I simply cannot stand by and watch our country develop so negatively in such a short time.” Yet, when pressed, Siegmund could not conceal his extremism. He defended the use of the motto “Everything for Germany!” — the banned Nazi phrase that got his party colleague, Höcke, into legal trouble. “I think it goes without saying that you should give your all for your own country,” Siegmund said. “And I think that should also be the benchmark for every politician — to do everything they can for their own country, because that’s what they were elected to do and what they are paid to do.” Siegmund also took issue with the notion that the Nazis perpetrated history’s greatest crime against humanity, so therefore Germans have a special responsibility to avoid such terms. Ulrich Siegmund also took issue with the notion that the Nazis perpetrated history’s greatest crime against humanity, so therefore Germans have a special responsibility to avoid such terms. | Heiko Rebsch/picture alliance via Getty Images “I find this interpretation to be grossly exaggerated and completely detached from reality,” he said. “For me, it is important to look forward and not backward. And of course, we must always learn from history, but not just from individual aspects of history, but from history as a whole.” Siegmund said he couldn’t judge whether the Nazis had perpetrated history’s worst crime, relativizing the Holocaust in a manner reminiscent of some of the most extreme voices in his party. “I don’t presume to judge that,” he said, “because I can’t assess the whole of humanity.” One lesson from Germany’s history, Siegmund added, is that there should be no “language police” or attempts to ban the AfD as extremist, as some centrist politicians advocate. “If you want to ban the strongest force in this country according to opinion polls, then you’re not learning from history either,” he said. INTERNATIONAL NATIONALISTS The AfD’s national leaders privately smarted at Siegmund’s comments for making their faltering rebrand more difficult. (Holm did not respond to a request for comment on the statements.) That’s especially the case because Weidel and other AfD leaders are increasingly looking abroad for the legitimacy they crave at home and fear such rhetoric will complicate the effort. Weidel and people in her circle have sought to forge closer ties to the Trump administration and other right-wing governments, seeing connections with MAGA Republicans in the U.S. and other populist-right parties in Europe as a way of winning credibility for the AfD domestically. In Europe, Weidel has repeatedly visited Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at his official residence in Budapest. The party is also making an effort to reestablish connections with members of Le Pen’s party in the European Parliament, according to a high-ranking AfD official. Not everyone in the AfD, however, sees eye to eye with Weidel on the attempt to moderate the party image, especially when it comes to relations with Moscow. The AfD’s other national co-leader, Tino Chrupalla, recently told an interviewer on German public television that Vladimir Putin’s Russia poses no threat to Germany. Chrupalla’s rhetoric is much more friendly to the Kremlin, and he’s the preferred party leader among many of the AfD’s most radical supporters in eastern Germany — where pro-Moscow sympathies are more prevalent. Many of the AfD’s followers in the former East Germany, where the party polls strongest, see Weidel, born in the former West Germany, as too mild in her approach. Ultimately, the direction of the AfD — in next year’s state elections and beyond — may well depend on which leader’s vision prevails.

PARIS — The banks of the Seine were still cloaked in early morning darkness when a security guard at the Paris Holocaust Museum, seated just a stone’s throw from the Notre Dame Cathedral, noticed a suspicious scene. Two men in dark clothes were spraying red paint across the Wall of the Righteous — a stone monument inscribed with the names of those who saved Jews in France during World War II. As the guard gave chase, a third man emerged from the shadows of a nearby building to film the night’s work: 35 red-painted handprints, splashed across the 25-meter wall. The attack, which took place in May of last year, was not an isolated act of hate. Police quickly identified and arrested three Bulgarian suspects whose trial begins in Paris on Wednesday — a case that investigators and intelligence officials say offers a rare window into Russia’s escalating campaign to destabilize France through covert influence and psychological operations. The vandalism of the Holocaust memorial was one of several symbolic assaults to shake the country over the past two years — featuring pig heads dropped at mosques, Stars of David sprayed on buildings, coffins left next to the Eiffel Tower— each seemingly designed to inflame tensions between France’s Jewish and Muslim communities or to erode French support for Ukraine ahead of a pivotal 2027 presidential election. They point to how France has become a hot spot in Russia’s hybrid war against Europe, as Moscow seeks to undermine one of Kyiv’s most powerful backers by aggravating its political and social tensions. Analysts and officials say France presents both a prime target and a weak flank — a nation with global weight but domestic vulnerabilities that make it especially susceptible to manipulation. “This reflects a geopolitical reality: Russia considers France to be a serious adversary, it’s the only nuclear power in the EU, and the president of the Republic is quite vocal on support for Ukraine, considering scenarios such as the deployment of French soldiers to Odesa,” said Kevin Limonier, a professor and deputy director at the GEODE geopolitical research center in Paris, where his team has mapped out Russia’s hybrid war operations in Europe. “In France, we are a little further away from the eastern flank and we don’t have the same level of prevention as the countries from the former Soviet Union,” said Natalia Pouzyreff, a lawmaker from President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party who co-authored a report on foreign interference earlier this year.  “The population is more receptive to this kind of rhetoric.”  RED HANDED French authorities have accused four men of orchestrating the defacement of the Holocaust memorial. The three allegedly on the scene, Mircho Angelov, Georgi Filipov and Kiril Milushev, fled Paris that same morning by bus to Brussels, then boarded a flight to Sofia.  Filipov and Milushev were later arrested by Bulgarian authorities and extradited to France. A fourth man, Nikolay Ivanov, suspected of financing the operation, was arrested in Croatia. Angelov remains at large. The men stand accused of conspiring to deface the monument, with the aggravating circumstance of acting on antisemitic motives. French investigators also suspect they may have acted, knowingly or not, as Russian agents. The operation could “correspond to an attempt to destabilize France orchestrated by the Russian intelligence services,” according to an assessment by the domestic intelligence agency DGSI cited in a note from the prosecutor’s office.  French authorities have accused four men of orchestrating the defacement of the Holocaust memorial. | Dimitar Dilkoff/Getty Images The same assessment links the act to “a broader strategy” aimed at “dividing French public opinion or fueling internal tensions by using ‘proxies’, meaning individuals who are not working for those services but are paid by them for ad hoc tasks via intermediaries.” During preliminary hearings, Filipov and Milushev did not deny being present but pointed to Angelov as the main orchestrator. The Paris raid wasn’t the first time members of the group had met: Angelov, Ivanov and Milushev are all from Blagoevgrad, a town in southwestern Bulgaria close to the border with North Macedonia. Contacted by POLITICO, Milushev’s lawyer Camille Di Tella said her client, a longtime casual acquaintance of Angelov, had only filmed the tagging without actively participating in the vandalism and “was not aware of what he was really meant to do” when he agreed on the trip. Martin Vettes, a lawyer for Filipov, declined to comment on the case ahead of the trial.  Vladimir Ivanov, a lawyer for Nikolay Ivanov, said his client only paid for hotel nights and bus tickets as a service to Angelov. He strongly denied his client had antisemitic motives or was aware of any Russian connection. POLITICO was unable to reach Angelov for comment. The DGSI declined to comment for this story.   Angelov’s Facebook feed, identified by POLITICO, includes selfies from around Europe, from Greek beaches to the Swiss Alps. Pictures of him show large tattoos covering his chest, upper arms and legs, featuring neo-Nazi symbols including the numbers 14 and 88 and a black Totenkopf, the emblem of a prominent SS division.  On May 12, two days before the attack on the memorial, Angelov posted a picture of himself in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral wearing a blue T-shirt and ripped jeans that partly concealed his tattoos. During his brief stop in Brussels he shared another picture taken in front of a glass building, followed by a winking emoji. The red handprints painted on the memorial are a symbol used by some pro-Palestinian activists to denounce the war in Gaza. But they are also seen by Jewish groups and scholars as a reference to the killing of two Israeli soldiers during the second Intifada in the 2000s, and a call for antisemitic violence.  The attack coincided with the anniversary of the first mass arrest of Jews in France under the Nazi occupation, drawing condemnation across France’s political spectrum. That evening, museum staff and local organizations held an impromptu vigil outside the site. “In a climate of rising antisemitism, we are shocked by this cowardly and heinous act,” Jacques Fredj, the memorial director, posted on social media. Privately, museum employees were hesitant to attribute the attack to pro-Palestinian groups. “We didn’t see the logic of it coming from activists,” said one of them, who declined to speak on the record given the sensitivity of the subject.  The Intifada reference felt old and out of touch, the museum employee said. The attacks also felt similar to a 2023 incident in which Stars of David were tagged across the French capital in an operation French prosecutors described as possible foreign interference.  The Paris prosecutor’s office also cited a report by Viginum, France’s national agency monitoring online disinformation, that found news stories about the red handprints were amplified by “thousands of fake accounts on Twitter” linked to the Russian Recent Reliable News/Doppelgänger network — a group already implicated in spreading reports about the Stars of David. FOREIGN INTERFERENCE The trial opening Wednesday is just one of nine cases involving attacks on religious communities or high-profile French monuments under investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office since late 2023.  The most recent is from Sept. 9, when Najat Benali, rector of the Javel mosque in southeastern Paris, was woken by a call from worshippers attending the early morning prayer. They had been shocked to find a pig head drenched in blood at the mosque’s entrance.  The vandalism of the Holocaust memorial was one of several symbolic assaults to shake the country over the past two years. | Antonin Utz/Getty Images Benali rushed to the scene. “It was still dark, I got scared,” she said. She alerted local officials and learned that eight other mosques had been targeted. Prosecutors quickly traced the act to a group of Serbian nationals after a Normandy pig farmer flagged a suspicious bulk purchase. The pig heads were dropped “by foreign nationals who immediately left [French] soil, in a manifest attempt to cause unrest within the nation,” said a note from the Paris prosecutor’s office dated mid-September. Later that month, Serbia announced the arrest of 11 of its citizens related to the incident.  Serbian authorities said the group is also suspected of throwing green paint on Paris synagogues and a well-known Paris falafel restaurant situated in the capital’s old Jewish neighborhood.  Allegations of foreign interference do little to alleviate the distress felt by the Muslim community, said Bassirou Camara, head of Addam, a nonprofit organization keeping track of anti-Muslim attacks.  “It doesn’t diminish the feeling of fear and disgust,” Camara said. “Because we know they are exploiting a crack that already exists.” France’s deep social, economic, cultural, religious and political divisions offer fertile ground for the Kremlin’s interference, several policymakers, academics and military officers told POLITICO. Unlike Russia’s neighbors such as Estonia or Lithuania, France is also unused to being the subject of Russian propaganda. Even though it’s a NATO member, the country historically saw itself as an independent ally of the U.S. and before the invasion of Ukraine kept open channels with the Kremlin. “Before, the Russians didn’t want to upset France because it had a kind of non-aligned role,” said a high-ranking French military officer, who was granted anonymity to talk candidly about a sensitive topic. “Now, they think they need to fracture our society and show the French that Emmanuel Macron is leading them down the wrong path.”   Large segments of the French political spectrum are also historically friendly to Russia. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, long accused of cozying up to Vladimir Putin, has sought to distance herself from the Russian president since he launched Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a fierce critic of NATO.  “There is an ambiguous ground in France, with a primitive anti-Americanism that sometimes swings into pro-Russian sentiment as a mirror effect,” the military officer explained. “We are paying for our historical position on Russia; we have always allowed a certain amount of doubt to linger, and the French have been fed on that.”  Stoking tensions in France requires little effort in a society already on edge. “The Russian intelligence sphere understands the cleavages in society,” said Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow and security expert at the German Marshall Fund think tank. It has “this very particular awareness and desire to instrumentalize highly painful domestic political issues and opportunism to tap those pain points at the right moment of political salience.”  One major flashpoint is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. France is home to the EU’s largest Muslim and Jewish populations — roughly 5 million and 450,000 people, respectively. “French society, with its Jewish and Muslim minorities, is the perfect breeding ground for provocation,” said a Paris-based European diplomat.   On the day the pig heads were dropped, local leaders denounced a rise in violence against Muslims.  France is home to the EU’s largest Muslim and Jewish populations — roughly 5 million and 450,000 people, respectively. | Geoffrey Van Der Hasselt/Getty Images “These clearly coordinated acts mark a new and sad step up in the rise of anti-Muslim hatred, and aim to divide our national community,” Chems-eddine Hafiz, rector of Paris Great Mosque, said in a statement.  Figures from the left were quick to blame “a toxic climate … fueled by the stigmatizing rhetoric of certain politicians,” pointing their fingers at the country’s far-right leaders. EASTERN EXAMPLES Several experts said they expect Russia to ramp up operations ahead of the 2027 French election, when Le Pen’s National Rally — a party far less sympathetic to Ukraine’s plight than Macron — may have its best shot yet at taking the presidency.  In the meantime, French officials have taken note of the spate of attacks. In May the government announced a new policy regarding Russian cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, promising to call out foreign governments in an effort to raise awareness. The country has also beefed up its legal arsenal. Last year, lawmakers toughened penalties for violence “committed at the behest of a foreign power.”  French authorities are reaching out to countries such as Estonia, Poland, Finland and Sweden to better understand the Russian psyche, several French officials told POLITICO.  France has valuable lessons to learn from frontline nations, many of which spent decades under Soviet control, the officials said. These include fostering media literacy and raising awareness of the threat of disinformation instead of focusing on countering fake news and spreading counternarratives. The new approach may already be starting to bear fruit. The French public is becoming more savvy at spotting foreign interference, said Pouzyreff, the Renaissance party lawmaker, referring to the pig heads episode.  “After having reported one, two, three attempts at interference, by the fourth the public was waiting for more information and [the controversy] deflated much more quickly,” she said. 

The EU should swiftly pull funding from organizations that fail to uphold its values, and do more to tackle hate speech, France, Austria and the Netherlands urged in an informal document seen by POLITICO. Citing a surge in antisemitic and racist incidents following the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and the war in Gaza, the three countries call on Brussels and national capitals to “redouble their efforts to combat racism, antisemitism, xenophobia and anti-Muslim hatred” and ensure that “no support is given to entities hostile to European values, in particular through funding.” The document lays out proposals to tighten financial oversight and expand the EU’s criminal and operational response to hate crimes. It calls on the European Commission to fully apply existing budget rules allowing for the exclusion of entities inciting hatred, and to make beneficiaries of programs such as Erasmus+ and CERV (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values) sign pledges that they will respect and promote EU rights and values. The document comes just one day before a European Council meeting in Brussels at which EU leaders are expected to discuss support to Ukraine, defense, and also housing, competitiveness, migration, and the green and digital transitions. According to a draft of the Council conclusions obtained by POLITICO, national leaders are expected to stress that EU values apply equally in the digital sphere, with the protection of minors singled out as a key priority. Beyond funding, the document demands tougher measures against online and offline hate speech. It also urges Europol to launch a project looking at hate crimes and calls for education and awareness programs on tolerance and Holocaust remembrance through Erasmus+ and CERV.

French prosecutors said Friday that foreign interference is behind a wave of apparently provocative acts — from stunts targeting Muslims to antisemitic graffiti — that have struck Paris in the last two years. Pig heads were found outside nine mosques on Tuesday, shocking the Paris region. “Several of the pig heads had the inscription ‘MACRON’ written in blue ink,” the prosecutor’s office said earlier this week. Prosecutors have not yet publicly named a state actor as being responsible for the various incidents, but the cases echo tactics previously attributed to Russian networks seeking to exploit social fractures in Europe. Foreign interference is “something we must take into account, and that we do take into account, since in making an assessment of this type of acts that have taken place in the Paris area since October 2023, we have nine cases,” Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told BFMTV on Friday. “It started with the blue Stars of David,” Beccuau said, referring to an incident that saw the symbols daubed on building walls in the French capitals’s 14th district in October 2023 — and was later linked to pro-Russian interference. “Then came the ‘red hands,’ then splashes of green paint,” she said about attacks that targeted the Paris Holocaust memorial in 2024 and 2025. Earlier this month, pro-Russian posters were discovered on several pillars of the Arc de Triomphe, showing the image of a soldier with the caption, “Say thank you to the victorious Soviet soldier.” Beccuau said investigators have identified similar patterns in the modus operandi of individuals of Eastern European origin arriving for a short period of time in France to carry out these acts. “Sometimes they take photos of what they have done, and send the photos beyond the borders to sponsors,” she said. “Some of the sponsors have been identified … so we are fully able to be convinced that these acts are operations of interference.” Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, French authorities have accused Moscow of spreading disinformation and orchestrating symbolic provocations designed to sow mistrust in institutions and deepen religious or political tensions. Clea Caulcutt contributed to this report.