Saturday, February 22, 2025

HAND GESTURE >> «Geste Nazi»

L'étrange genèse du livre de Jordan Bardella

Bannon is the second Trump ally who has drawn criticism in recent weeks for making a similar hand gesture.

Steve Bannon speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland on Feb. 20, 2025.

Steve Bannon speaks Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington.Alex Wong / Getty Images

Feb. 21, 2025, 11:21 AM PST

By Matt Dixon and Ben Goggin

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — French far-right leader Jordan Bardella on Friday canceled his planned remarks here at the Conservative Political Action Conference after Steve Bannon, the former adviser to President Donald Trump who is now a popular conservative podcast host, made a hand gesture that some said appeared to be a Nazi salute.

"Yesterday, while I was not present in the room, one of the speakers out of provocation allowed himself a gesture alluding to Nazi ideology," Bardella said in a statement to French media outlets. "I therefore took the immediate decision to cancel my speech that had been scheduled this afternoon."

The controversy comes a month after Elon Musk was accused of giving a Nazi salute at one of Trump's inauguration events, further embroiling conservatives in a debate about whether their leaders are intentionally paying homage to the brutal regime responsible for the systemic murder of millions of Jews in the 1940s.

It's also the most recent incident at CPAC in which an attendee appeared to refer to Nazi ideology.

The Bannon incident occurred Thursday, as he spoke to the crowd of conservative activists.

"The only way they win is if we retreat," Bannon said at the end of his speech. "And we're not going to retreat.
We're not going to surrender.
We're not going to quit.
Fight, fight, fight!"

He then extended his right arm.

In an interview with NBC News on Thursday at the conference, Bannon denied that the gesture was a salute.

"I do that all the time.
I wave to my crowd, because it's all about them," Bannon said, saying the controversy was a distraction from the substance of his speech.

"The only thing it's done is made the speech even bigger," he added.
"But the guy in France, you need to be combat-hard.
He's just a p---y."

"MAGA will never support him. ... He's a pretty boy," Bannon added, referring to Bardella, president of France's far-right National Rally party.
"He's never going to be able to lead France if you're afraid by the mainstream media."

Bardella chez le trumpistes : le rendez-vous manqué

The National Rally did not respond to a request for comment.

At the conference, the gesture drew a muted response from attendees. The crowd registered no notable additional reaction to the gesture. Many attendees in line for a meet-and-greet with Bannon on Friday had either not watched his speech, or had seen it and thought calling it a salute was incorrect framing or leftist-trolling.

Greg Conte, a national socialist who attended the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, said afterward in the conference lobby that speakers like Musk and Bannon who have used the gesture are virtue-signaling, calling the conference "zio-conservative" and criticizing its support of Israel.

"Any 'Nazi salute' by Bannon, Musk or any other capitalist oligarch is stupid posturing," Conte said.