Old allies accuse former Greek finance minister of splintering leftwing vote at a time of far-right revival

Four years after Greece’s former “rock-star finance minister” clashed with his northern European counterparts over austerity measures and debt relief, Yanis Varoufakis is once again taking the fight to his old enemy.

This time, he hopes to make friends rather than foes: at the end of this month, Varoufakis will try to convince voters to elect him as a member of the European parliament – not in his native Greece, but in Germany.