Jordan Bardella, the leader of the far-right party that dealt a decisive blow to President Emmanuel Macron’s alliance in the European elections, is a charismatic 28-year-old celebrated by his followers as a transformative figure.
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Jordan Bardella, who assumed the leadership of the National Rally (RN) in 2022 had a significant impact on the European elections by obtaining twice as many votes as President Macron’s centrist alliance.
“Our compatriots have expressed their desire for change,” Bardella said. “Emmanuel Macron is tonight a weakened president.”
Born in 1995 in a Parisian suburb, this son of Italian immigrants has had a meteoric political career. Influenced by the violent riots in the French suburbs in 2005, He entered politics at the age of 17joining Marine Le Pen’s far-right party, the National Rally.
Two years later, he abandoned his Geography studies to dedicate himself to politics. He went consecutively regional councilor, spokesperson, vice president of the partybefore topping the National Rally list in the 2019 European elections at just 23 years old.
In November 2022, He was elected successor to Marine Le Pen as president of the extreme right party. The following year he was appointed, for the second consecutive time, head of the list of the National Group – it is expected that he will continue to lead the party for many years.
Bardella has become the first person to lead the anti-immigration National Rally party who is not a member of the Le Pen family.
Marine Le Pen, who took over from his father in 2011, expelled him from the party in 2015 in an attempt to distance him from its most radical and far-right fringe.
Le Pen, who came second in the last two presidential electionshas remained the party’s leader in Parliament and is widely expected to run again in 2027.
But her young successor, who has more than a million followers on Tik Tok, is proving to be an important asset for attract a younger audience to vote for the party.
The main candidate of the National Rally for the European elections, Jordan Bardella, advocated limit the free movement of immigrants through national border controls and reduce climate standards of the EU.
The party no longer wants to leave the EU and the euro, but weaken them from within. Aiming to occupy a significant position in Europe after the election, Bardella has distanced his party from German ally Alternative for Germany (AfD), declaring that they will no longer align with the faction in the European Parliament following a series of controversies.
Bardella’s meticulously crafted narrative has contributed to refine RN image, a party once led by Jean-Marie Le Pen from a castle located in a wealthy suburb west of the capital. In a televised debate before the election, Bardella was accused of bringing about the end of the EU. Bardella replied: “I am not against Europe. I am against the functioning of Europe.”
Bardella is not particularly proactive in the European Parliament, as he has not initiated any parliamentary reports and is absent from 75% of his parliamentary committee meetings.
Bardella’s critics accuse him of spend too much time cultivating your image public, to the detriment of delving into crucial political issues. The far-left European MP Manon Aubry has described it as “ghost parliamentarian“, citing his frequent absence from the European chamber in the last five years.
