05/11/2022 14:27 (act 05/11/2022 14:30)
Jordan Bardella replaces Marine Le Pen as party leader ©APA/AFP
France’s right-wing populist Rassemblement National party has elected former interim leader Jordan Bardella as the party’s new leader. The adopted son of longtime RN chief Marine Le Pen received 85% of the vote in an online vote, as Le Pen announced at the party conference in Paris on Saturday. The 27-year-old beat his competitor Louis Aliot. Only 15 percent of members voted for the mayor of Perpignan.
This is the first time that the RN has not been run by a member of the Le Pen family since its founding. Bardella has publicly pledged allegiance to Marine Le Pen in the past. However, it is suspected that he expects his own presidential candidacy in 2027.
Le Pen said he didn’t want to compete for a fourth time, but he didn’t completely rule it out either. She had already retired from leadership of the party during the election campaign, leaving Bardella to take the reins.
Bardella, 27, born near Paris, is considered a staunch right-wing nationalist and serves right-wing extremist narratives. He recently wrote in the right-wing magazine “Marianne” that the lives of the French people are in danger. Elites are ignoring this, and people are changing as a result of immense and rapid immigration. True to Le Pen’s line, he attacks the media, leaving Le Pen to play the nurturing mother role she craves.
Under Le Pen’s leadership, Bardella rose to the top of the party in a very short time. From party spokesperson and head of the youth organization to leader of the list for the European elections, he rose to the post of vice president of the party and eventually became interim president.
The great challenge for Bardella now will be to anchor the RN more firmly in the province. The party still suffers from a lack of staff and a lack of local roots. In this year’s parliamentary elections, right-wing nationalists nevertheless managed to increase their seats in the lower house tenfold. They now form the largest opposition faction. Leading candidate Le Pen gave RN a historically good result of 41.45% of the vote in the presidential election.