French authorities searched Elon Musk’s social media platform X’s French offices on Tuesday as part of a criminal investigation into its Grok AI chatbot, the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a post on X. France opened an investigation last month following the proliferation of sexually explicit deepfakes generated by Grok on X, following up on a previous probe into the chatbot’s antisemitic outbursts over the summer. Owner Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino have been summoned for “voluntary interviews” on Apr. 20, the prosecutor’s office said in a press release. “At this stage, the conduct of this investigation is part of a constructive approach, with the aim of ultimately ensuring that the X platform complies with French law, insofar as it operates within the national territory,” it said. A recent study estimated that Grok could have produced up to three million sexualized images in 11 days in January, including 23,000 of children. The European Commission has also opened a new probe under the EU’s online platforms rulebook, and has said it is exploring a ban on apps under the AI law. The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office said Tuesday’s search was conducted by its cybercrime unit, together with the EU’s law enforcement agency Europol. The investigations range from sexually explicit deepfakes, aiding the distribution of child sexual abuse material to the dissemination of Holocaust-denial content, the office said. X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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.

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.

LONDON — Nigel Farage has gone to war with the BBC after a radio presenter suggested he had “a relationship when he was younger with Hitler,” vowing he would not speak to the national broadcaster until it apologized for its own past “racist” content.  Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Westminster, the Reform UK leader angrily rejected claims he had targeted antisemitic racial abuse at fellow pupils in his schooldays at the independent Dulwich College, in south London, and read out a letter from a Jewish classmate who supported him.  The furor blew up after Radio 4 presenter Emma Barnett asked Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice about the allegations that Farage had made comments about the Holocaust to a Jewish pupil.  Interviewing Tice on the Today program on Thursday morning, Barnett said: “Let’s talk about your leader Nigel Farage’s relationship when he was younger with Hitler.” Tice then dismissed the claims as lies. “I thought this morning’s performance by one of your lower grade presenters on the Today program was utterly disgraceful,” Farage told a BBC reporter at the press conference on Thursday. “To frame a question around the leader of Reform’s relationship with Hitler, which is how she framed it, was despicable, disgusting beyond belief.”  While denying he had ever racially abused anyone, Farage accused the BBC of “double standards and hypocrisy” because in the 1970s, at the time he was alleged to have made the comments, the broadcaster aired many comedy shows that contained racist humor which would now be totally unacceptable.  He listed “homophobic” and “racist” content, listing shows such as “Are You Being Served,” “It Ain’t Half Hot Mum,” and performances by “Bernard Manning.” Nigel Farage accused the BBC of “double standards and hypocrisy” because in the 1970s the broadcaster aired many comedy shows that contained racist humor which would now be totally unacceptable. | Andy Rain/EPA “I cannot put up with the double standards of the BBC,” he said. “I want an apology from the BBC for virtually everything you did throughout the 1970s and ’80s.”  Farage read a letter from a school contemporary which said the culture was very different in the 1970s. “Lots of boys said things they regret today,” the letter said. Farage’s comments were “offensive” sometimes, “but never with malice.”

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.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Kanzler Friedrich Merz ist auf diplomatischer Mission in Afrika, doch der G20-Gipfel wird von einem 28-Punkte-Friedensplan aus den USA für die Ukraine überschattet. Gordon Repinski berichtet aus Angola, wie Merz versucht, Europa im Spiel zu halten und einen „Diktatfrieden“ durch Donald Trump zu verhindern. Hans von der Burchard ordnet die hektische Diplomatie zwischen Genf, Berlin und Johannesburg ein. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview: Norbert Röttgen. Der CDU-Außenpolitiker findet drastische Worte für den kursierenden Plan. Er nennt ihn eine „Aneinanderreihung von Unverschämtheiten“ und warnt davor, dass Europa am Donnerstag – zu Thanksgiving – vor vollendete Tatsachen gestellt wird. Röttgen fordert stattdessen ein klares finanzielles Signal der EU für Kiew. Außerdem: Der Nachklapp zum „Spaziergang“ mit AfD-Mann Ulrich Siegmund. Pauline von Pezold analysiert, wie die AfD intern auf die Holocaust-Aussagen ihres Spitzenkandidaten reagiert: Zwischen öffentlicher Verteidigung und Kritik hinter vorgehaltener Hand. Zudem reagiert Gordon ausführlich auf das Hörer-Feedback und die Debatten auf X. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski. Legal Notice (Belgium) POLITICO SRL Forme sociale: Société à Responsabilité Limitée Siège social: Rue De La Loi 62, 1040 Bruxelles Numéro d’entreprise: 0526.900.436 RPM Bruxelles info@politico.eu www.politico.eu

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. 

BELGRADE — Serbia has arrested 11 of its citizens on suspicion of high-profile hate crimes in Berlin and Paris — involving pigs’ heads and green paint — that were widely viewed as seeking to stir up tensions between religious groups in Western capitals over the war in Gaza. The Serbian interior ministry said the main organizer of the group with the initials M.G. was still on the run and had acted on the “instructions of a foreign intelligence service.” Since Stars of David were painted across Paris in 2023, French authorities have told the media that they have been seeking to stop Russian attempts to sow instability. The Serbian interior ministry gave no indication of which “foreign intelligence service” was involved in the more recent offences. The Serbian ministry said the 11 detainees were part of a group of 14 and that their activities between April and September 2025 had included “throwing green paint on the Holocaust [memorial in Paris], several synagogues and a Jewish restaurant.” The individuals also placed “pigs’ heads near Muslim religious buildings, all in the Paris area, as well as in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin,” the statement continued. The ministry added the group had “aimed to spread ideas that advocate and incite hatred, discrimination and violence” based on “differences in race, skin color, religious affiliation, nationality and ethnic origin.” The suspects are being held in Smederevo, a city close to the capital Belgrade, as they await questioning within the next 48 hours. The government, led by the Serbian Progressive Party, maintains a strong relationship with the Kremlin. It recently promoted a report by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) that claimed the EU is fomenting a “color revolution” in Serbia by supporting months-long anti-government protests. Serbia did not join the EU’s sanctions on Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and operates regular flights to St. Petersburg and Moscow.

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron wants to pull off a grand diplomatic coup on Monday by collecting several Western countries together to recognize a Palestinian state, but he’s a long way from delivering a genuine breakthrough in Gaza. The limits to what he can achieve at the United Nations General Assembly are clear. European heavyweights like Germany and Italy will not be joining his initiative and there’s little prospect his efforts can sway U.S. President Donald Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war. The big idea in New York is to trumpet the recognition of Palestinian statehood by France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta, Andorra, Australia and Canada. One French official called it a “diplomatic victory” for Paris.   Macron’s ultimate goal is to show there is a global counterweight to Trump’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, and to ramp up the pressure for peace. Comparisons are already being made with France’s defiance under Jacques Chirac to stand up to the U.S. over the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — a position also articulated in a landmark speech at the U.N. There is, of course, a strong domestic political motive too. European leaders are conscious of their need to ride a wave of public anger about the war, which is only growing as the death toll in Gaza surges. The pollster YouGov has found public support for Israel in Western Europe is plumbing historic lows. But how much influence does Macron actually have? Even the French admit the grandstanding and big gestures in New York will make no immediate difference to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as Israeli tanks crunch forward in a ground offensive.  Neither Israel nor the United States will hold back because of Macron. What’s more, the French president’s attempt to show a common front also reveals how disunited Western Europe looks, particularly when EU and NATO countries are treading on eggshells around Trump because of the war in Ukraine. Germany, Italy, Greece and the Netherlands won’t be signing up. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz will not even attend, having found more pressing concerns at home. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni has insisted she is not in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state “prior to establishing it,” and will arrive a day after Macron’s event. ‘IT DOESN’T CHANGE ANYTHING’ The gamble, according to one European diplomat, who was granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, was that “Israel would give some ground” as international pressure mounted against it. But the diplomat conceded it didn’t look like the gamble was paying off: “That doesn’t look like it’s happening. The U.S. supports Israel, and they are accelerating annexations in the West Bank.” Another diplomat noted that as long as Israel has the support of “their great ally the United States with its Iron Dome … it doesn’t change anything.” For many observers, though, Macron’s push is less about the immediate impact and more about creating a watershed moment in Europe’s relations with Israel.   Displaced Palestinians move with their belongings southwards on a road in the Nuseirat refugee camp area in the central Gaza Strip following renewed Israeli evacuation orders. | Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images Europe is haunted by its role in the Holocaust and has only ever taken “symbolic, small” steps against Israel, said Kristina Kausch, Middle East expert with the German Marshall Fund think tank, even if Europeans were “uncomfortable with how Israel treated the Palestinians.” “But the developments in the last two years, and in last months, led to the realization that things can’t carry on,” she said.   For Kausch, the European Commission’s move last week toward imposing sanctions and tariffs on Israel represents that sea change in Europe’s mindset. “It is unprecedented,” she said. “Trade measures are usually only taken against authoritarian countries such as Myanmar or Belarus,” she said.   UNDER PRESSURE In the weeks and days ahead of Macron’s conference on Palestine, the U.S. and Israel have tried to scupper France’s diplomatic offensive. Washington last month refused to grant the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, a visa to travel to the U.S. to attend the annual gathering of the United Nations.   Israel is floating various retaliatory measures against France, and Prime Minister Netanyahu and his top aides are mounting a last-minute bid to persuade Macron to tie French recognition of Palestinian statehood to the release of the remaining Israeli captives held by the Hamas militant group.   “If he’s going to tie the recognition with the release of hostages, then Israel can swallow it,” an Israeli official told POLITICO on the condition of anonymity to speak about a sensitive issue.  For France, the backlash is proof that its diplomatic efforts are having an effect and that Israel and the U.S. are increasingly isolated.   “It’s not going to change much for the Gazans,” said France’s former Ambassador to the Mediterranean Karim Amellal. “But we are seeing alliances shifting. There’s Israel and the U.S. against most European nations including Germany … and the dynamic now is going to accentuate their isolation,” he said. France’s former Ambassador to Syria Michel Duclos drew direct parallels with France’s push against the Iraq war in 2003. “France was weakened politically, economically, but it was still capable of channelling the feelings of a majority of countries,” he said. But another parallel is clear too. As Duclos recalls, France’s turn in the diplomatic limelight in 2003 did not prevent the invasion of Iraq, or the ensuing years of turmoil across the Middle East. “It risks being a waste of time,” he said.  Prime Minister Netanyahu and his top aides are mounting a last-minute bid to persuade Macron to tie French recognition of Palestinian statehood to the release of the remaining Israeli captives. | Julien Mattia/NurPhoto via Getty Images The first European diplomat quoted above dismissed Macron’s statehood conference as “the last act of a president who wants to leave a legacy behind him.” EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES The cast list for Macron’s conference on Palestine is hardly stellar in terms of European leaders. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Belgium’s Bart De Wever, Portugal’s Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and leaders from Luxembourg and Malta will attend Monday’s conference. A bit more heft will come in the form of Canada’s Mark Carney and Australia’s Anthony Albanese, who are expected to make speeches. In a sign that European resolve to stand up to the U.S. and Israel is fragile, a majority of other European leaders, even like-minded ones, have found reasons to steer clear of Macron’s conference.  British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is attempting to navigate between pressure from his own party and avoiding the opprobrium of Trump, who paid a largely friendly visit to the U.K. last week.  Starmer is not expected to attend the U.N. gathering, leaving it to the Deputy PM David Lammy and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. He has faced criticism since taking office for the amount of time he has spent abroad at international summits, while several of his most pressing domestic missions remain unsolved.  Germany’s Chancellor Merz won’t be attending, either, sending his Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul instead. Officially, Merz’ absence is due to domestic matters requiring his attention, such as parliamentary discussions on next year’s national budget.   The convenient timetable clash also allows the German chancellor, a firm opponent of recognizing Palestinian statehood, to avoid directly confronting Paris — and others — on the international stage. Time and again, the chancellor and his government have spoken out against such a step.  “The German government is not currently considering recognizing Palestinian statehood,” Merz said on Thursday night during a visit to Madrid. “We continue to view such recognition as one of the final steps, not one of the first, on the path to a two-state solution.” Kausch from the German Marshall Fund explained: “It’s not necessary, nor politically convenient for him to go. … It’s enough that they do not block things and let France and Spain move the conversation forward,” she said, with reference to Germany’s decision to back France’s declaration in support of a two-state solution. Spain already recognizes a Palestinian state. Standing alongside Sánchez, who has taken a particularly tough line on Israel among EU states, Merz added: “It comes as no surprise that we may have different opinions on this matter. Of course, this also has something to do with German history.” Italian Prime Minister Meloni, never a fan of backing Macron’s initiatives, is also staying away, choosing to arrive in New York a day after the conference. Last week, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani dismissed moves to recognize Palestine as “absolutely useless.”   Palestinians, including children, in Gaza city, where the Israeli army launched ground attacks following airstrikes, are migrating towards the southern regions. | Mohammed Nassar/Anadolu via Getty Images “Recognizing a Palestinian state today is way of giving ourselves a good conscience and doesn’t solve the problem,” he said in the Italian senate on Thursday.  A senior Greek official said the timing was wrong: “We are unreservedly in favor of the establishment of a Palestinian state. However, we believe that unilateral recognition at this moment does not produce any beneficial results.” On Monday, Macron may be able to airbrush out the divisions among Europeans with a rousing speech and a carefully choreographed conference, but the splits matter when it comes to taking action. For now, there hasn’t been sufficient support among EU countries to pass either sanctions or tariffs against Israel, with the latter requiring a qualified majority to pass. But this could change. According to two diplomats in Brussels, if Israel takes steps such as annexing territory in the wake of Macron’s statehood conference, EU countries that have so far opposed any EU-wide measures against Israel, notably Germany, may decide to change their position. Even then, however, the real power will still lie with Israel’s rock-solid allies in Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has not minced his word’s about the French president’s “reckless” plan that he says will be “a slap in the face to the victims of October 7th.” Nicholas Vinocur, Nektaria Stamouli, Jamie Dettmer, Aitor Fernández-Morales and James Angelos contributed reporting.

The deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have finally persuaded officials in Brussels to step up their efforts to punish Israel. It’s not likely to help. On Wednesday, the European Commission will set out detailed proposals for suspending preferential trade terms and sanctioning “extremist” ministers and violent Israeli settlers.  The timing of the announcement is critical. It comes just 24 hours after a United Nations commission concluded Israel was perpetrating “genocide” and as Israeli forces begin major ground operations designed to occupy Gaza City. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been under mounting pressure in recent weeks to take a tougher line against Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsened.  According to Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat, the new package will see duties imposed on more than one-third of Israel’s trade with the EU, which was worth €42.6 billion last year.  On paper, the impact would be significant as the EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner. “Definitely this step will have a high cost for Israel,” Kallas told Euronews in a Tuesday interview.  But in reality the proposal has almost no chance of winning enough support from European governments to be implemented in the short term, or perhaps ever.  The EU’s record of action against what its leaders have condemned as Israel’s man-made famine this year has been one of strong words immediately undermined by weak follow-through.  It’s been 51 days since the Commission proposed what at the time was seen as the mildest possible penalty against Israel in protest at the mass starvation of Palestinians: suspending parts of the Horizon Europe research cooperation program. But not even that limited proposal made it beyond the debating stage.  While ever more governments have taken their own steps — sanctioning Israeli ministers and pledging to recognize a Palestinian state — the EU as a whole remains hopelessly split.  As von der Leyen herself admitted last week, “this is stuck without a majority. We must overcome this. We cannot afford to be paralyzed.” Europe’s “inability to agree,” she said, is “painful.”  Ursula von der Leyen has been under mounting pressure to take a tougher line against Benjamin Netanyahu. | Omar Havana/Getty Images The most tortured position of all is that of the bloc’s economic and political powerhouse: Germany.  Friedrich Merz, Germany’s new leader, who hails from the same conservative political family as von der Leyen, has grown increasingly outspoken in his criticism of Netanyahu’s administration since taking over as chancellor in Berlin in February. Last month he banned the export of all German weapons that could be used by Israel in Gaza. But that immediately triggered a party backlash. Now, nobody in Brussels believes Merz is about to buckle and endorse von der Leyen’s plans to suspend the EU’s trade deal with Israel, even if some believe Germany and others will support more sanctions against violent Israeli settlers.  Without Germany’s support, the penalties on trade will not have the backing of the qualified majority of EU countries they need to be enacted. Formal sanctions against Israeli ministers will be even harder, as these measures require the unanimous support of all 27 EU governments to pass.  For Germany’s Merz, the question of how to handle Israel is miserably difficult. The Nazi legacy of the Holocaust casts a long shadow over German politics: On Monday night, an emotional Merz fought back tears in a speech at a synagogue in Munich denouncing a new wave of antisemitism.  “In politics and society, we have turned a blind eye for too long to the fact that a considerable number of the people who have come to Germany in recent decades were socialized in countries of origin where antisemitism is virtually state doctrine, where hatred of Israel is taught even to children,” Merz said. Countries that fail to act to stop genocide can potentially be treated as complicit under the Genocide Convention, a fact that could theoretically push more European governments to support the EU’s sanction plans.  Nobody in Brussels believes Friedrich Merz is about to buckle and endorse Ursula von der Leyen’s plans to suspend the EU’s trade deal with Israel. | Omar Havana/Getty Images Yet for Merz, domestic considerations are likely to make it impossible for his government to endorse the assessment that genocide is under way, still less to take concrete action to curtail Israel-EU trade.  Katja Hoyer, a German-British academic and author of Beyond the Wall, said Merz’s relations with his own Christian Democrats will likely weigh on his thinking. “Surveys suggest that Merz has the majority of the German public on his side when it comes to a tougher stance on Israel, but his problem is the backlash he’d get from his own party,” she said.  “The CDU/CSU has long been the home for those who staunchly support Israel. For many, this is an integral part of the party’s soul. Already under pressure for various broken promises and for having disappointed conservative purists on a number of issues, I don’t know if Merz will feel that he can survive a policy change in this area unscathed.”  As for von der Leyen, the pain of Europe’s paralysis is likely to continue.  Karl Mathiesen contributed reporting.