Bannon’s Salute at CPAC, Echoing Musk, Prompts a French Protest

Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House official and conservative podcast host, was wrapping up a speech to a right-wing audience outside Washington on Thursday when he made a gesture that some observers, including a far-right French leader, likened to a Nazi salute.

Suggesting that President Trump pursue a constitutionally prohibited third term, Mr. Bannon rallied a crowded ballroom with the phrase “Fight, fight, fight,” quoting Mr. Trump’s own words after surviving an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania last year. Then, as the crowd cheered and applauded, Mr. Bannon extended his right arm to his side, his palm facing down, in a quick salute.

Mr. Bannon’s gesture resembled one by Elon Musk last month that also provoked an outcry.

This time, one of the loudest denunciations came from the right: Jordan Bardella, the president of France’s far-right National Rally, said in a statement that he had canceled his plans to speak at the conference on Friday morning after “one of the speakers provocatively made a gesture referring to Nazi ideology.”

Mr. Bannon’s gesture, delivered in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference late Thursday, was met with similar comparisons by online commentators on Thursday night.

Asked about Mr. Bardella’s criticism of the gesture, Mr. Bannon said in a text message Friday afternoon that he had “waved to the MAGA movement as I always do in my motivational speeches.” For good measure, he assailed Mr. Bardella for pulling out of CPAC, attacking him in vulgar terms, calling him “too weak to govern France” and saying that “the leaders of this worldwide revolution gathered @ CPAC consider him a coward.”

Mr. Bannon’s gesture was also reprised from the CPAC stage on Friday morning by another speaker, Eduardo Verástegui, a Mexican actor who produced “Sound of Freedom,” a 2023 film about child trafficking.

“President Trump’s movement, my heart goes out to all of you,” Mr. Verástegui said, moving his right hand from his heart to the same position as Mr. Bannon, and holding it there as some in the crowd applauded. He then pumped his fist and repeated the word “fight.”

When Mr. Musk performed a similar move from the stage at a rally in Washington last month, his actions drew comparisons to the Nazi salute made famous by Adolf Hitler. Other commentators called it a Roman salute, which is also known as the “Fascist salute” and was adopted by the Nazis. Gestures like the ones that all three men made are illegal in Germany. Mr. Musk has dismissed the Nazi comparisons.

Mr. Bardella’s decision to pull out of CPAC, a large conservative gathering that has increasingly courted foreign right-wing figures, reflects a paradox facing nationalist parties in Europe.

Though Mr. Trump may seem to them like a natural ally, his unbridled brand of nationalism, and the company he keeps, now present a potential liability.

His economic policy, which he says puts America first, leaves him in conflict with European nationalists who pledge similar approaches in their own countries. And Mr. Trump and some of his allies have placed themselves further to the right on some issues than many of their European counterparts, making their association possibly more a burden than a benefit.

That is especially true for parties like Mr. Bardella’s National Rally, which has spent years trying to clean up its old image as a racist, antisemitic movement, in a normalization strategy that has paid off in broadening its appeal to French voters.

Emma Bubola contributed reporting.