AFP
Jordan Bardella, the spoiled child of Le Penism
Jordan Bardella, 28, ever closer to Matignon since the success of the National Rally in the first round of the legislative elections, has established himself as the darling and embodiment of Le Penism without even bearing its name. Since the announcement of the dissolution, he has tried his hand at three-piece suits whose austerity is intended to underline seriousness and rigor. He has also sometimes forced himself to turn away those who brandish their phones at each of his appearances: almost heartbreaking for the man who has made this selfie strategy a trademark for months to establish his popularity. A few days before a possible accession to Matignon, it is a question of rebalancing this image of a pop star with shirts and jackets ever tighter to the body, surrounded by groupies at each gala outing, and of presenting the face of a putative Prime Minister of France. In mid-June, Marine Le Pen confirmed that it would be he, and not she, who would become head of government in the event of a majority in the Assembly. After fifty years of Le Penism, it is therefore a former poster-sticker not even thirty years old who must install the extreme right in power. “Marine Le Pen considers him a spiritual son,” believes a deputy close to both. Almost an advantage in this family where blood ties have never prevented betrayals and rancour. Bardella, the heir to the clan? The young man likes to play the naive “born in 1995” to better send the sulphurous past of the National Front and the excesses of Jean-Marie Le Pen back to a bygone era. A big string that sometimes breaks, notably when he explains in November that the founder of the FN was “not anti-Semitic”, despite the legal convictions. Faced with the scandal, he was forced to backpedal. – From identitarians to sovereignists – The man who today presents himself as the leader of the camp of “reason” and “moderation” in the face of “extremism” nevertheless linked his adolescence and youth to pure, even radical Le Penism. At 18, he queued up to get a photo alongside the “devil of the Republic”, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Later, it was under the benevolent eye of Frédéric Chatillon, a figure of the Groupe union défense (GUD) in the 90s, that Jordan Bardella began his political apprenticeship, while establishing an intimate relationship with his daughter. The student Bardella, who enrolled in geography school after his baccalaureate with honors, frequented the same bars as the “identitarians” of his generation, on the Left Bank in Paris. And it was with Philippe Vardon, a former leader of the far-right Bloc Identitaire group, that he learned his trade at the National Rally. The activist from Saint-Denis, who signed up for his membership in 2012, was quickly spotted by the party with the flame: he embodies the new-look Le Penism dear to the movement’s new president. A descendant of Italian immigrants, the young man also understands the advantage he can gain from his “merit-based” background in the middle of the blocks of this deprived northern suburb of the capital, the son of a divorced nursery school worker. Without insisting on his father, a prosperous SME boss who offers him a car and rents him an apartment. At 20, Jordan Bardella is already an RN regional councillor for Île-de-France, after having quickly abandoned the lecture halls. A few months earlier, he was the parliamentary assistant to Jean-François Jalkh, a cog as far-right as he was essential to the National Front machine. But it was without difficulty, if not with zeal, that he then followed in the footsteps of the party’s all-powerful number two, Florian Philippot, a slayer of identity groups and a champion of social-leaning sovereignty. – Black box – At the National Rally, his plasticity was appreciated. A first consecration came in 2019, when Marine Le Pen offered him the lead in the European elections. By surpassing the Macronie score, Jordan Bardella washed away the affront of his boss’s failed debate against Emmanuel Macron two years earlier. He then found himself a new mentor, Philippe Olivier, brother-in-law and main advisor to Marine Le Pen, while starting a relationship with her daughter, Nolwenn Olivier, which has now ended – the young man has since adopted great discretion about his private life. Spokesperson for candidate Le Pen in 2022, Jordan Bardella impresses with his media ease and his agility in debates. “He learns quickly,” they whisper at the RN. His detractors describe a “Frankenstein” who absorbs, digests and then regurgitates the elements of language, and whose oratorical talent would hide, at best, a doctrinal void. Or even “right-wing positions”, as expressed by the RN mayor of Hénin-Beaumont, Steeve Briois, when the MEP takes the head of the National Rally in 2023, warning against a “potential re-radicalization” of the party. Wasn’t it also the same Bardella who had estimated that “Didier Raoult is to medicine” what the RN is “to politics”? Marine Le Pen cuts short any rebellion: the young man must broaden his electoral base blocked under a glass ceiling. To the neither-right-nor-left Le Penist, Jordan Bardella thus makes his more liberal and pro-business nuance heard. “Complementarity”, swear the two. “Between them, it’s a black box, we don’t know what’s going on”, notes an RN MP. For his part, the young man emphasizes his deference as much as his singularity, seeking to thwart the disastrous fate that the party with the flame has always reserved for its number twos. But the prodigious child of Le Penism is also in a certain sense that of Macronism. Emmanuel Macron had indeed paved the way by breaking the codes of politics and installing young people in responsibilities. Jordan Bardella does not hesitate to mirror Gabriel Attal, whom he has made his best enemy. Last month, during a debate with Macronist Valérie Hayer, he did not hesitate to repeat phrases that candidate Macron had thrown at his rival Le Pen during their presidential debates. The dissolution has nevertheless plunged disruptor Jordan Bardella into an abyss of questions: if he were to be appointed to Matignon, cohabitation could undermine Marine Le Pen’s chances of victory in 2027. His acquired government experience would also fuel his own Elysée pretensions more than ever. Is it this vertigo that led him last week to affirm that he would refuse the post in the event of a simple relative majority? Unless it is a question of betting that an unmanageable National Assembly would lead to the resignation of Emmanuel Macron. So that everything goes (almost) as planned again.pab/sde/lbx
