Paris Jordan Bardella is the new party leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in France. The only 27-year-old replaces Marine Le Pen. As the best-known face of the party, she is likely to continue to determine the fate of the RN.
Bardella has been the party’s interim leader since September 2021. Le Pen retired to attend to her presidential bid and then decided to step down from the party leadership. The successor was announced at the party congress in Paris.
This ends an era: Bardella, who usually appears elegantly in a suit and tie, replaces the Le Pen family. Marine Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie founded the party in 1972 under the name Front National and chaired it until 2011, when Marine took over.
The election marks a new stage in Le Pen’s strategy to one day come to power. Bardella’s goal was to get at least 67.65 percent, the same as Marine Le Pen did in 2011. Now he’s done even better than his mentor: Bardella got 84.84 percent of the vote, beating the 53- year old Louis Aliot. The approximately 40,000 supporters of the party were able to vote electronically.
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Le Pen wants to rejuvenate her party and therefore set up Bardella as crown prince. But there was also speculation in France that she was putting him in the spotlight so her niece Marion Maréchal could stop stealing the show. Louis Aliot, Mayor of Perpignan, former party vice-president and ex-boyfriend of Le Pen, belongs to the old guard. The vote is a decision between the “old” and the “modern”, wrote the business newspaper “Les Echos”.
Bardella is considered Le Pen’s “good soldier”
However, Le Pen continues to set the tone. “She’s the political leader, I’m the general of the army,” Bardella explains. He is regarded in France as their “good soldier”.
The election was not about a new ideological orientation, but about a personality who can best sell Le Pen’s ideas in the future. At the same time, it allows them to distance themselves from party politics.
The 27-year-old son of an Italian family comes from a working-class suburb and can therefore present himself as a counterpart to the French elite.
(Photo: imago images/PanoramaC)
Both candidates repeatedly emphasized that they were “Marinists”, i.e. they stand by Marine Le Pen. In her right-wing extremist line, she combines the defense of “French identity” with social aspects. She wants to create more purchasing power for the less privileged and does not rule out state intervention in the economy, in contrast to the economic liberalism advocated by her far-right competitor in the presidential elections, Éric Zemmour.
Bardella sees Le Pen as her party’s best candidate for the 2027 presidential election. “She leads the opposition, I organize the party,” said Bardella. Le Pen has taken over the RN faction in the National Assembly, which has 89 MPs as of the general election.
The new party leader comes from an Italian immigrant family and grew up in a council flat in the Parisian working-class suburb of Drancy. He does not come from the French elite, which Le Pen has chosen as the enemy. Many RN voters can identify with him.
His age is also an advantage, as the party has many young voters from the lower classes of society. On top of that, the choice of Bardella would remain in the family, he is dating a niece of Marine Le Pen.
Le Pen wants to rejuvenate her party’s image – and is positioning Bardella as her successor.
(Photo: AP)
The young politician is very enthusiastic about his mentor. He joined the party at the age of 16, dropped out of his geography studies to go into politics and admires the boss: “I only became a member because of Marine Le Pen.” the party around.
Scandal about right-wing extremists heckling in parliament
However, the change at the top of the party is overshadowed by a scandal in the National Assembly. A xenophobic heckling by an RN MP during a speech by a black MP earned Grégoire de Fournas a 15-day ban from the National Assembly.
Fournas had asked his colleague to go back to Africa. His party had voted against the exclusion.
Bardella now has to calm things down again. He also has two other problems: he is not anchored in France’s local politics and is seen as cold and inscrutable, as a “robot” or “puppet” by Marine Le Pen. He therefore has to work on his image first.
However, Le Pen should not underestimate her ambitious pupil. The enthusiastic boxer has already passed his high school diploma with distinction. His rise has been extremely rapid, from the moment he took over the top of the party list for the 2020 European elections in 2019, where it became the strongest force. Previously, he had proven himself as a party spokesman and headed the party’s youth organization.
Political experts in France see him as the future for RN. If Marine Le Pen does not win the presidential election in 2027, he could run in 2032. Then he would only be 37 years old.
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