Marine Le Pen is about to kiss her successor, Jordan Bardella, during the congress. /
The French far-right leaves the presidency of the party to MEP Bardella and begins a four-year career with the aim of defeating Macron in 2027
MEP Jordan Bardella was elected this Sunday in Paris as the new president of National Regroupment, the main formation of the French extreme right, by achieving 84.84% of the votes of the militants. He prevailed over Louis Aliot, mayor of Perpignan, who obtained 15.16% support. Bardella, 27, replaces Marine Le Pen, who leaves the organic structure of the party to focus on fighting for the French presidency again.
«It is with a certain emotion that I leave the presidency of National Regroupment. Congratulations to our new leader, Jordan Bardella, to whom I hand over the torch today,” Le Pen wrote on Twitter. “I am not leaving the presidency of our movement to go on vacation. I’m still mobilized,” added the far-right leader at the 18th Congress, held at the Maison de la Mutualité in Paris.
Le Pen, president of the party between 2011 and 2022, will continue to be a deputy and president of the National Regrouping group (89 deputies) in the National Assembly. In her ten years at the head of the far-right formation, she has managed to ‘de-demonize’ it to make it more presentable to the electorate, but she has not managed to win the presidential elections in any of the three times in which she was a candidate for the Elysee Palace . Bardella paid tribute to Le Pen. “I owe everything I am to Marine. She has made me discover politics,” said the far-right MEP.
With Bardella at the helm of the party, Le Pen will now be able to focus on the National Assembly and on the future 2027 presidential campaign. “We are going to succeed Emmanuel Macron,” promised the MEP.
change of surname
His election to the presidency of National Regrouping represents a revolution within the party founded in 1972 under the name of the National Front by Jean-Marie Le Pen, a historical figure of the French extreme right and father of Marine Le Pen. It has often been criticized that the Le Pen family ran the training as if it were a family business.
Bardella is not a Le Pen, but he is very close to the clan. His partner is Nolwenn Olivier, niece of Marine Le Pen and daughter of Philippe Olivier and Marie-Caroline Le Pen. Louis Aliot, Bardella’s opponent, also had ties to the Le Pen. The mayor of Perpignan was Marine’s partner for ten years.
The fact that the president of National Regrouping does not bear the surname Le Pen is “a test of maturity,” explains MEP Philippe Olivier, special adviser to Marine. Olivier does not believe that the replacement at the head of the party will mean an ideological change, although there may be “some method.” Marine Le Pen, his sister-in-law, will continue to be “the moral authority of the in-laws,” says Olivier. “Bravo to Jordan,” tweeted Jean-Marie Le Pen, thus blessing his choice.
Bardella alluded in his speech to the racist incident in the National Assembly, which tarnished the change at the top. The president of National Regroupment denounced a “manhunt” for the far-right deputy Grégoire de Fournas, sanctioned by the National Assembly for telling a black deputy to return to Africa.
An ambitious politician but with an unwavering loyalty to his great mentor
Jordan Bardella has had a meteoric rise in National Rally despite not having any college degrees. This young politician is very ambitious, but he is faithful to Marine Le Pen.
At the age of 16, Bardella, of Italian origin, joined the National Front and entered his youth. At 19, he was departmental secretary of the National Front in Seine-Saint Denis and in 2015 he held the position of parliamentary assistant to far-right MEP Jean-François Jalkh, a denier of the use of Zyklon B gas in Nazi death camps .
At the age of 20, Bardella, raised in the Parisian suburbs, launched the collective Banlieues patriotes (Patriots Periphery) with the aim of convincing the inhabitants of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods to vote for Marine Le Pen. Bardella was part of her mentor’s presidential campaign in 2017. In September of that year, he was appointed spokesperson for the National Front and a year later he was elected national director of the party’s youth (FNJ).
Marine Le Pen, who wanted to renew the party’s image and give it a fresher, more modern air, knew how to see the potential of Bardella, young, attractive, media-oriented, a good speaker and with a good presence. In June 2019, he was appointed Vice President of National Regrouping and, a month later, he was elected, at the age of 23, an MEP. In September 2021, he was appointed acting party chairman so that Le Pen could focus on campaigning for the April 2022 presidential election.