They called him the angelic face of the French far right, without knowing him. Infallible selfie smile, meteoric rise. And now, with a new potential responsibility: to be the first Le Penist in the history of the Fifth Republic to aspire to lead a government. He, Jordan Bardella, the boy who escaped from the Parisian banlieue, now 28 years old, of Italian origins, is the typical former teenager who found himself in the right place at the right time. In his case, for the operation dédiabolisation launched years ago by Marine Le Pen: to free the party from the ideological waste of the former Front National while she cleaned it of the old tools anchored to the past of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
If it is true that politics and the heart often travel on a parallel track, the child prodigy of the late Fn owes his opportunity first and foremost to a love story; two years with the daughter of Frédéric Chatillon, Marine’s controversial former informal advisor, which changed his life. A stroke of luck? No, because he already had the Fn card in his pocket; clear ideas, given that at 16 he had already been struck by a TV performance by BleuMarine. A member of the party since 2012, thanks to that circle of family friends he is however noticed. In a party at the time shaped by family relations, rather than political ones.
Bardella’s name begins to take root in French history. First as Marine’s protégé, then as dolphin. Then spokesperson for the cartel which in the meantime had been renamed Rassemblement national. And finally president of the RN since 2021, MEP in office since 2019 and today prime minister in pectore. He is not an ideologue. But a strategist. Someone who smells the air and knows where the wind will blow, even if not without some gaffe or risk. Like when, when cornered on TV, he said that the founder of the Fn was not anti-Semitic despite his condemnations; he then recovered after 7 October by siding with Israel and in defense of the Jews of France; partly seduced.
They say he is a chronic opportunist, given that after starting his career alongside the former Le Penist Philippot (at the time Marine’s potential heir apparent) on a national-socialist line, he moved to more liberal positions than Le Pen herself, ready to establish relationships with the economic world with pro-business speeches. The alliance with the neo-Gaullist Ciotti seems to have started with him, and today he could blow up the dam that has so far prevented the Le Penists from truly governing. But how did he “arrive” in the French? An enviable TV presence, of course. Talent from face to face; thinking of speaking to citizens and not just to his interlocutor opponent. Years of study, of political training: supported by the BleuMarine “circle”, which has invested in him in diction and gestures. The rest is his own work. Like his body building sessions.
When he talks about suburbs, security and immigration, he has a secret card. She says that integrating and respecting the République is possible and that he is the example. He remembers being raised by his mother in Seine-Saint-Denis, a complex reality on the outskirts of Paris. Marine taught him to speak to the inhabitants, one by one in the cities not yet “converted”; while he gained TV presence and gave new guidelines to the party to broaden the audience to graduates and young people in general.
Of course, social media. The blessing and curse: until the European elections, the media still called him a puppet, a plastic leader who was only good on TikTok.
In the meantime, he has exceeded one million subscribers, attacking segments of the public for years to come (15-24 year olds) while in his travels in every corner of deep France he hugged cows, shook hands with farmers and made promises to “straighten up” a country that now he sees him on pole. From testimonial of a journey, to protagonist of a “revolution”. Of mixed blood: «I am 75% Italian».
