PARIS — The president of France’s far-right National Rally, Jordan Bardella, “categorically denied” accusations by French investigative outlet Mediapart that he had shared antisemitic remarks in private conversations as a teenage activist. Bardella said he had instructed his lawyer “to initiate all necessary proceedings” against Mediapart for publishing what the 31-year-old MEP called “blatant falsehoods.” Mediapart said it obtained and independently verified correspondence in which Bardella said that “the Jew must dominate other peoples, crush them, and rob them” and “all banks are held by the Jews.” The comments were allegedly made mostly in 2013, when Bardella was 17 and shortly after he had joined the National Rally, whose presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is the front-runner in next year’s election. During a visit to a construction industry event Monday, Le Pen called the Mediapart report “insanity.” The National Rally’s predecessor, the National Front, was founded in part by Nazi collaborators.
Le Pen’s father and predecessor as party chief, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was repeatedly convicted of hate speech for downplaying the Holocaust. Marine Le Pen has spent years trying to rid her party of its most extreme elements and absolve it from accusations of antisemitism since taking over in 2011, going as far as expelling her father in 2015. In 2023, Bardella sparked controversy by denying that Jean-Marie Le Pen was an antisemite, before correcting himself a few days later.
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