PARIS — Jordan Bardella was meant to be the young, telegenic face of the far-right National Rally’s effort to clean up a reputation once stained by antisemitism and xenophobia. But instead of helping propel Marine Le Pen to the presidency next year, the 31-year-old might have just become her biggest liability. Bardella, the president of the National Rally and leader of the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament, finds himself on the defensive after investigative outlet Mediapart published a story Monday alleging that he expressed antisemitic views in private conversations with fellow National Rally members in 2013, when he was 17.
The far-right leader vigorously denied allegations that he said “the Jew must dominate other peoples, crush them and rob them” and “all banks are held by the Jews,” adding that he was suing Mediapart. Both he and Le Pen framed the story as part of a broader concerted effort to prevent the far-right veteran, who is currently topping the polls, from winning the election next year. Yet the allegations themselves are rattling Le Pen’s campaign given her years-long effort to distance her party from its antisemitic past.
The National Rally’s predecessor, the National Front, was founded by Nazi collaborators and Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie, who was repeatedly convicted of hate speech. Le Pen kicked her father out of the party in 2015 for repeating his claim that the Holocaust was a “detail” of history. The fallout of this latest scandal could be particularly damaging given how Le Pen jumpstarted Bardella’s career and put him at the forefront of a detoxification effort.
Too young to have been involved with the party’s old guard, Bardella was supposed to be a fresh face that could help the party make inroads in parts of the electorate where the Le Pen name carried too much baggage — notably with older voters and in the Jewish community. Since taking the reins of the National Rally in 2021, Bardella has sold the party as a defender of France’s Jewish population and pointed to his full-throated support of Israel as proof. The 31-year-old traveled to Israel in 2025 after receiving an invite from the Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli.
Former Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti, a longtime opponent of the far right, said Mediapart’s reporting shows that “efforts to detoxify the party were actually a cover-up operation.” In one alleged exchange reported by Mediapart, Bardella said that top ministerial posts “go to people for whom Israel and banking interests take precedence over French interests,” allegedly targeting finance ministers Laurent Fabius, Pierre Moscovici and Manuel Valls. The problem for the National Rally is that despite repeated pressure to clean up its ranks, the French press has regularly unearthed antisemitic or racist comments during election cycles from party candidates vying for public office. National Rally critics have long argued the party hasn’t distanced itself from its most toxic intellectual influences.
According to Mediapart’s report, Bardella looked up to Alain Soral, a prominent far-right conspiracy theorist convicted multiple times for hate speech and denying the Holocaust. Mediapart reported that Bardella wrote in 2013 that Soral was “right” on “France’s submission to a Zionist logic.” Asked about ties to Soral in an interview Monday with leading conservative channel CNews, Bardella didn’t directly answer the question. Dupond-Moretti, the former justice minister, who just authored a book on the National Rally’s alleged connections, said the party’s problematic relations have long been established, citing Le Pen’s past ties to Soral, who campaigned for the far-right party in the early 2000s.
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