Swedish politician steps down over racist chant

LONDON

A Sweden Democrat (SD) parliamentarian who got caught on tape belting out a racist chant at the party’s European Union election vigil announced on Tuesday that he will step down and quit parliament, or Riksdag, according to local media.

Riksdag member David Lang sang the far-right slogan "Auslander raus" (foreigners out) during SD's election vigil.

Gigi D'Agostino's Eurodisco hit "L'amour toujours" from 1999 has spread in far-right circles in the past year. In Germany chants with slogans such as Deutschland den Deutschen and Auslander raus (Germany for the Germans and foreigners out) are chanted to the well-known melody.

The song was played during SD's EU election night vigil while local tabloid Expressen was conducting interviews with party members.

After hearing the song, Lang could be seen jumping in and singing the German text “Auslander raus!”

“Oh shit, are you recording this,” the politician asked when he saw the Expressen reporter.

According to the tabloid, Lang tried to take the recording equipment from the journalist.

SD group leader Linda Lindberg had a private conversation with the far-right politician on Monday.

“At my urging, David Lang has chosen to resign from his position in the Riksdag. He has sat in the Riksdag since our entry in 2010 and has done very well for the party. It does not detract from his reckless actions yesterday, which he himself understands. It is against this background that he chooses to leave his seat in the Riksdag,” she wrote in a press release.

Lang claimed that he picked up the song on social media.

“I now understand that the text has been sung in contexts of which I had no deeper knowledge until now. It was not premeditated on my part, and I apologize if anyone was offended. To show that I take this very seriously, I have given up my seat in the Riksdag," he said in a statement.

Contrary to political pundits' expectations that the far-right SD party would win every election, the party lost seats in the country’s 2024 European Union polls after Monday’s results showed it received slightly more than 13% but finished fourth.

SD, a nationalist and right-wing populist political party, is the largest member of Sweden’s right-wing governing bloc and the second largest party in Riksdag.