France’s far-right star Bardella is about to find out whether he’s running for president

The 30-year-old National Rally president will become his party’s candidate if Marine Le Pen’s appeal fails on Tuesday.

By CLEA CALCUTT
in Paris

^{Illustration by Natália Delgado/ POLITICO}

Far-right star Jordan Bardella faces a career-defining moment Tuesday, when he’ll finally learn whether Marine Le Pen’s legal troubles will knock her out of the next French presidential election, anointing him as their party’s candidate.

Since Le Pen was first found guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds and handed a five-year ban on running for public office last spring, she and Bardella have had to navigate the thorny question of who would represent their nationalist, anti-immigration National Rally party in the 2027 race to replace President Emmanuel Macron.

The two tried to present a united front throughout Le Pen’s fast-tracked appeal this year, reiterating that she is the preferred candidate while Bardella is the “Plan B” — and that no matter who runs, Brussels better get ready.

But that united front became harder to maintain as Le Pen’s prospects of success grew increasingly dim, and Bardella, the National Rally president, began cultivating his presidential stature with a more selective media strategy and trips abroad.

Though Bardella now faces similar legal headaches, Tuesday’s ruling in Le Pen’s appeal will end the uncomfortable uncertainty. Should the court bar her from running for president a fourth time, she has indicated she’s unlikely to drag out the legal saga any further.

Bardella would then, at just 30 years old, be thrust into the role of presidential front-runner given his strong polling numbers.

“Jordan doesn’t have the same experience as Marine, but it’s extraordinary what he has achieved at his young age,” said National Rally lawmaker Alexandre Sabatou. “We are here to shake things up, we’ve got appetite and energy. I think that’s how you change things.”

But Bardella’s meteoric ascent has triggered anxiety within his party. Some are worried he might lack the experience to win a presidential election — or that he might betray the party’s core values to get there.

“There will be a tremendous amount of work involved in putting together a completely different campaign,” said a National Rally heavyweight.

“Everything has been built around Marine Le Pen for the past 20 years. We’ll have to redo everything,” said the heavyweight, who, like others quoted in this story, was granted anonymity to candidly discuss the party’s plans for the presidential race.

Even if Bardella can appeal to a wider section of the electorate than Le Pen, who many still associate with her controversial father Jean-Marie Le Pen, Bardella’s inexperience could prove to be an opportunity for his rivals.

“He’s going to have to convince people that a 30-year-old can be trusted with the nuclear codes,” said a conservative adviser who backs the Les Républicains’ presidential candidate Bruno Retailleau.

Early attacks

Clean-cut and media-savvy, Bardella’s rise from a university dropout who spent his childhood in an impoverished Parisian suburb to potential presidential candidate is extraordinary. In little more than a decade, he went from being an obscure parliamentary adviser to leading the National Rally.

An Ifop poll last month suggested Bardella would win the first round of the presidential race — which goes to a runoff if no candidate nets more than 50 percent of votes — with as much as 37 percent of the vote, more than 15 points ahead of his nearest competitor in each of the various scenarios tested. Other polls show Bardella winning in most second-round scenarios.

His opponents, however, have begun observing weak spots in Bardella’s armor.

The National Rally president was widely criticized for spending a recent weekend with his girlfriend, the princess and socialite Maria Carolina de Bourbon des Deux-Siciles, in Monaco for the grand prix while France grieved over the death of an 11-year-old girl named Lyhanna. Revelations that the man suspected of killing the girl had been repeatedly accused of committing sexual violence against children have sparked outrage and calls for major changes to the country’s justice system.

Bardella’s response that “there are marches [for Lyhanna] every day” did little to quell the criticism toward him.

Bardella’s allies say the National Rally’s opponents are trying to seize on his relationship to, in the words of Sabatou, “alienate us from blue-collar voters by portraying Jordan as out of touch.”

“But I think people like his story with the princess because it’s a real fairy tale,” said Sabatou.

Name recognition

While Bardella is a familiar character in European political circles, and something of a TikTok phenomenon, he is still not very well known in France — particularly compared to Le Pen, who is a household name.

“Bardella has a good image among older voters, among whom he is seen as the ideal son-in-law, but this is not based on facts but on feelings,” said OpinionWay pollster Bruno Jeanbart.

“His personal image is rather empty among voters, and possibly they will discover things they don’t like as the campaign heats up,” he said.

Already Bardella is seen as a fairly conventional politician. According to a poll conducted for POLITICO by Public First in June, only 25 percent of French respondents said they thought of Bardella as anti-establishment compared to 27 percent who said they thought he was part of the establishment. That’s a lot less than Alternative for Germany leader Alice Weidel, who was seen as challenging the establishment by 43 percent of German respondents.

If Bardella steps in for Le Pen, he will have to clarify his position on a range of issues including the economy and state finances.

But at the heart of internal tensions splitting the National Rally is a disagreement over how to win the next presidential election. To break the glass ceiling that has long kept the far right from power, the party must expand its appeal to more traditional conservative voters, without alienating its core blue-collar electorate.

Bardella and his team already ruffled feathers within the National Rally by wading into France’s explosive debate on pension reform, casting doubt on whether he’d honor the party’s previous promise to bring the age of retirement down to 62.

Keeping the current retirement age, which will climb to 64 for those born in 1969 or later, could win over moderate voters worried about France’s crumbling finances — but it would likely come at the expense of the National Rally’s old guard. One senior party official said it was “incomprehensible” to hint at a shift in the National Rally’s stance.

“It confuses our message, and the outcome is that we don’t know what we want,” said the official. “Working-class markers are part of our identity.”

According to the conservative adviser quoted above, this is where things could go wrong for Bardella. Unlike Le Pen, who has built “a brand” around her personality and name, Bardella’s going to have to start taking positions on policy issues, even if it’s politically risky.

“People don’t really know what he stands for,” said the adviser.

“When political debates get complicated, he makes some big blunders when pressed on certain topics. It’s going to start showing.”

Sarah Paillou and Hanne Cokelaere contributed to this report.