He has not yet turned 30 and is already tired of signing autographs. Jordan Bardella (Drancy, 1995), son of Italian immigrants with Algerian ancestors, has been gracing headlines, acclaimed as the new poster boy of the far right and the natural successor of Marine Le Pen, who made him president of National Rally (RN) at the age of 26 in 2021.
"It has not only been Marine Le Pen who has been unjustly condemned; it is French democracy that has been executed", was the first reaction of the dolphin upon learning of the sentence that could mean the political death of his godmother, with whom he also had blood ties (he had a romantic relationship with Nolwenn Olivier, Marine's niece).
Until the weekend, Jordan Bardella himself officially belonged to the group of deniers within his own party who resisted thinking about the disqualification of the 56-year-old historic leader, who remained the favorite for the 2027 presidential elections.
However, the apprentice of Le Pen had been rehearsing the role of successor for some time, which has led to friction in recent months due to his desire for the limelight, confirmed over the weekend by his stellar presence at a conference on antisemitism in Israel (personally blessed by Benjamin Netanyahu).
"It is vital that we never forget the barbarity of Hamas", Bardella proclaimed on his visit to the Holy Land. "It was civilian victims, women and children, who were massacred, and that barbarity has affected Israel as it has affected France. We are facing an existential threat to all democracies."
"There is currently a deadly honeymoon between Islamic fundamentalism and the far right," declared Bardella, who paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust, in an attempt to definitively bury the stigma of antisemitism that haunted the National Front, the precursor of RN, for decades. "I never knew Jean-Marie Le Pen's party," is the excuse Bardella often gives, embarked simultaneously on a campaign to soften his image.
Just over a month ago, he made headlines for another highly symbolic gesture when he suddenly canceled his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in response to the seemingly Nazi salute made on stage by Steve Bannon, former advisor to Donald Trump.
With the demeanor of a new generation politician, fiercely young, tall, and well-groomed, Bardella has been gaining ground in the polls alongside Marine Le Pen, who did not hide her desire to make him prime minister if she ever became president. Bardella's utmost effort, which caused a stir in the 2024 European elections, has been precisely that: to complete RN's transition from a protest party to a governing party.
In his skillful way, he has managed to alternate anti-immigration messages aimed at the hard right base with statements directed at a broader spectrum of the electorate: "I belong to a generation of immigrants who, when they arrived in France in the 1960s, made the effort to abandon part of their culture to assimilate into the national culture. That effort is not required of immigrants today, and the result is people who are undoubtedly born on French soil. But who have their hearts in a different country."
Bardella often recalls how his grandmother did not let him speak Italian (he learned it later). His family arrived from Toronto in 1963 and settled in Saint-Denis, one of the suburbs most affected by poverty and drugs north of Paris. His childhood was marked by his parents' separation, street violence in his neighborhood, and his solitary passion for video games like Call of Duty.
He was on the verge of entering the Institute of Political Studies of Paris, and studied Geography at La Sorbonne, although he ended up leaving the classrooms to dedicate himself to politics. At 17, he joined the National Front, attracted by Marine Le Pen's personality and message: "She was the only politician who seemed to understand how I felt, capable of speaking to people about how difficult it is to make ends meet, the rising cost of living, security and identity, the pride of being French."
Le Pen recruited him in 2018 as the party's spokesperson and president of the National Front Youth (FNJ), later renamed Generation National, in line with the party's image change to which he personally contributed. As Clément Guillou and Corentin Lesueur recall in Le Monde, Bardella took over the presidency of RN "when it was on the verge of becoming the Titanic" and was able not only to right the ship in three years but also, if necessary, to take the helm of a presidential campaign.
Ce que je cherche (What I'm looking for) is the title of the autobiographical book Bardella released in November, just as the trial against Le Pen for embezzlement was coming to a close. Four months later, with over 200,000 copies sold, the leader of the new French right no longer needs a business card. Plan B is called Bardella.