Jordan Bardella gropes through the chaos of the French far right

Some organisms mutate radically in order to survive. The current National Rally (RN), for example, a political entity founded 56 years ago as the National Front by former members of the SS, a handful of anti-Semitic collaborators and former OAS terrorists — the organization opposed to the French exit from Algeria that tried to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle — is today a mainstream political party. But the road to so-called normalization has been plagued by resignations and in-fighting. After denying its origins, expelling its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and rebranding itself as pro-Israel, the party could now complete its transformation by eliminating the Le Pen name from its ranks.

The far-right party suffered its biggest blow to date on March 31 when its leader, Marine Le Pen, was sentenced to four years in prison — with two of those years suspended and two to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet — and a five-year ban on running for election. Should the appeals she will file fail or be resolved too late, Le Pen will be out of the 2027 electoral race, just when she was closest to achieving the long-held family dream of moving into the Élysée Palace.

In the event, the figure of Jordan Bardella, 29, her protégé and president of the RN, will be propelled to the fore, a radical change for a party based largely on family ties, whether blood or sentimental. “We are a political party and to nominate a candidate there has to be a congress. But if Marine has chosen him, he can’t be left in the gutter in case he has to run,” Louis Aliot, vice president of the party and ex-partner of Le Pen, told EL PAÍS after being convicted along with Le Pen.

Born in Drancy, northeast of Paris, Bardella’s career has been defined by his political boss and mentor, but his exaggerated youth also allows him to dissociate himself from that past. A skilled politician with no great knowledge of anything in particular, he was not even born when Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s grossly anti-Semitic father, called the gas chambers a mere “detail” of World War II. He was seven in 2002 when the then-party leader succeeded in qualifying the RN for the presidential runoff, which he ended up losing massively to Jacques Chirac. “You look to the past. I look to the future,” Bardella has consistently responded to those who question the origins of the RN. At the age of 22, he was already its spokesman; at 23, he was at the head of the list for the European elections; and he has been president of the party since he was 26.

Excessive youth

Bardella is very young, even according to Marine Le Pen, who was thinking he would be succeeding her further down the road. Two weeks ago, in an interview in Le Figaro, she revealed what she would do if she was not elected President of the Republic in the 2027 presidential elections. “This will be my last campaign,” she explained. Then, smiling, she added: “In 2032, Jordan will be 36 years old.” That is to say, by then he would be old enough and experienced enough to be the RN candidate. Not now.

A boy from a humble family whose narrative is one of self-improvement, Bardella published an autobiography this year that has become a bestseller, promoted by the Fayard publishing house. He is the ideal candidate according to a sector of the French conservative establishment, which views him as the perfect figure to bring together the entire right wing, not unlike Giorgia Meloni in Italy. Having spent months meeting with businesspeople and players in the global economy, Bardella would be the presentable face of the far right and has the support of the main conservative media in France. Le Pen’s protégée is more than acceptable to the liberal right traditionally put off by Marine Le Pen’s aggression.

Political scientist and expert on European nationalist movements Jean-Yves Camus believes that Bardella’s political drift is both an advantage and a disadvantage. “An advantage, because it is perhaps a point in his favor among disappointed Republican voters [the traditional right-wing party], who are looking for a more liberal stance on economic issues. However, among populist voters, it would be a disadvantage because Le Pen has always responded to their demand for a social state. In other words, Le Pen is not at all like Donald Trump, who seeks to dismantle the state and the entire social protection system,” he notes.

An Odoxa poll for the Public Sénat and the regional press, published on March 31 before Le Pen’s conviction, revealed that 60% of RN supporters prefer Bardella over Le Pen (32%). Among the French as a whole, the RN president gets 31%, compared to 16% for Le Pen. Even more significant: only 3% of RN supporters believe that Le Pen’s conviction will be a “handicap” while 69% consider that Le Pen’s disqualification “will be neither a plus nor a minus.” And within this group, 25% believe that her disqualification might actually be a good thing “because it would allow the party to turn the page on Le Pen and present Bardella in 2027.”

Having headed the list in the last legislative elections with 11 million votes, Bardella wanted to show his absolute loyalty to Le Pen on March 31, noting that she was the party’s best candidate. “The conviction with provisional execution of Marine Le Pen, which prevents her from being a candidate in 2027, is a democratic scandal,” he wrote on X, launching a request for a “peaceful demonstration” on her behalf.

Bardella’s only problem is that he is yet to convince the old guard. Ironically, his main competition might come again from within the Le Pen family. Marion Maréchal, Le Pen’s niece, turned her back on the party and joined Reconquista, the ultra-formation created by Éric Zemmour which fell apart. Now, it looks as though she might return to the fold to claim her inheritance. As Jean-Marie’s favorite granddaughter, she seems the only one capable right now of disputing Bardella’s succession.

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