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

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Jordan Bardella, the president of France’s far-right National Rally, canceled his planned speech at the conference, saying the gesture referred to “Nazi ideology.”

Stephen K. Bannon standing at a lectern during his speech at CPAC.

By Michael Gold

Reporting from the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md.

Feb. 21, 2025Updated 3:07 p.m. ET

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.