It is 2015 and Jordan Bardella, a baby-faced 20-year-old, is campaigning for a place in regional government among the hardscrabble housing estates in northern Paris.

His girlfriend, Kelly Betesh, poses for campaign posters. One is divided into two photographs. On the left side, she’s wearing a red beanie with her cheeks streaked in red, white and blue paint – the French Tricolour. On the right, Betesh, also 20, is veiled in a niqab, the Muslim head covering. “Choose your banlieue [suburb],” the poster says, “Vote Front! [National Front].”

A similar poster, just featuring Tricolour Betesh, declares: “Les Banlieues Patriots”, or the Patriot Suburbs. The crudely populist campaign – what kind of neighbourhood do you want to live in? – caused a splash. Bardella, running for the right-wing National Front, is subsequently elected to the regional council. Betesh becomes a minor far-right celebrity, appearing on TV as a youthful pundit and even agreeing to an interview with a curious reporter from The Wall Street Journal, whom she tells: “I’m a patriot.”

Evidence of that campaign still lingers online – although Bardella probably wishes it didn’t. He and Betesh are ancient history. So, too, is the overtly racist messaging that was once the French National Front’s stock-in-trade. Today, the far-right party founded by Holocaust-denier Jean-Marie Le Pen has a new name, Rassemblement National – National Rally or RN – and in Jordan Bardella, a new face, a protege whisked through the ranks to become its leader in 2022.

Bardella’s appeal is clear: young (still just 28), well-spoken and impeccably dressed in slim-fitting suits and turtlenecks, not a hair in his short haircut out of place. Youthful but confidently grown-up, he’s often described as “handsome” or “the perfect son-in-law”. He’s derided by some (older) opponents as the “king of TikTok” for his enthusiasm for social media, where he’s often shown posing for selfies with his fans. Yet, his carefully curated clips – of him taking down opponents in debates, climbing aboard a boat to meet fishermen, driving a tractor or sipping a regional wine – reach millions.

Exactly what he and National Rally stand for these days is not entirely clear. Their policies are vague: the message is more about what they represent. Yet, thanks to a surprise election called for the end of this month, Bardella is, to plenty of people’s surprise, suddenly a genuine contender for prime minister.

What does he actually believe? What explains his extraordinary rise? And what is happening in French politics?

Who is Jordan Bardella?

For a potential future prime minister, surprisingly little is widely known about Jordan Bardella. French media have dug deep to find any skeletons in his closet, mostly without success. According to news outlet Le Monde, a French television program investigated Bardella for 18 months and claimed to have found just one “blemish”: an anonymous Twitter account sharing questionable content, an association he denied.

Le Monde sent a reporter to the home town in Italy of Bardella’s grandparents to see what they could find. Not much. A recent, widely reported revelation: he played video games as a teenager. Quelle surprise!

By 2018, Betesh and Bardella were long over, she telling the site Vice, “he’s my ex”, and Bardella refusing to comment at all on those days. His social media features broad, patriotic messaging that speaks to a particular world view. “He has recast – some would say sugarcoated – the angry message of the nationalist right so effectively that there is talk of ‘Bardellamania’,” writes Roger Cohen in The New York Times.

Bardella has a curated origin story. Born to Italian parents, one of whom has some Algerian heritage, he grew up in social housing in a tough part of Paris called Seine-Saint-Denis, a multicultural northern “banlieue”, or suburb. His father left when he was young and, in Bardella’s telling, he witnessed much crime and social unrest in his neighbourhood, which was once singled out in a special newspaper series as “the suburb left behind”.

This is what he says politicised him. In April, he told television channel France 2: “Like many families, many people who live in these neighbourhoods, I was confronted with violence, and my mother struggled to make ends meet. The truth is that the sense of urgency that led me into politics has never left me.”

His father, meanwhile, was a successful small businessman who was the likely source of funds for Bardella to attend a private Catholic school. They saw each other weekly and, according to investigative reporter Pierre-Stéphane Fort, went on a trip to the United States. “It seems likely that Jordan Bardella’s father, never mentioned in his speeches, provided them with financial assistance,” he writes in his new French-language unauthorised biography. “In short, Jordan Bardella, like many children of divorcees, had one foot in two different social environments.”

Bardella qualified for university but dropped out, apparently, to focus full-time on politics. He joined the National Front when he was 16 and by 19 had become the party’s youngest-ever department secretary. The following year, he made his first tilt at public office, running in the 2015 departmental elections to represent the commune of Tremblay-en-France. He lost, but rebounded later that year as the National Front’s lead candidate in Seine-Saint-Denis, which saw him elected to the regional council of Ile-de-France.

In 2015, the publication Le Point described him as “the blond guy in the blue blazer” fond of quoting the Islamologist Gilles Kepel and the geographer Christophe Guilly, who was known for his theory on “peripheral France”, those mainly rural areas where working-class people have been forgotten by the political elite. These are themes that inform Bardella’s messaging today: indeed, there are few posts on his social media from urban environments, but many of him walking around agricultural fairs, patting cows.

The next acceleration in Bardella’s ascent may have occurred courtesy of another companion, Kerridwen Chatillon, daughter of right-wing French businessman Frederic Chatillon, a longtime confidante of Marine Le Pen. It was she, reports Fort, who brought Bardella and Le Pen together in person for the first time (as told to him by Bardella’s former friend, right-wing activist Aurelien Legrand).

“The three of us were there, Jordan, Kerridwen and me,” Legrand said (in translation). “We meet Marine Le Pen … She already knows him, yes, like she knew everyone, but that’s where she spots him, that he’s someone important.” He goes on: “In fact, it’s always the same thing, private life in the National Rally makes careers, it’s always the same circus in this party. From that moment on, he is with the Chatillon girl, so he is reliable, so he is a bit part of the family, so we can be interested in him.“ (Bardella has rejected this story as a necessary factor in his rise.)

In 2018, Bardella won the party’s top spot on what is known as its “list” for the European Parliament elections for 2019. National Rally finished in first place, winning 23 of the then 79 French seats in the European Parliament, and Bardella became the second-youngest Euro MP in history, a position he holds today. His campaign manager was a man the Financial Times described as a propaganda expert: Philippe Vardon, “an agitprop specialist who made his name distributing bacon soup to the homeless in Nice, a city with a big Muslim population”.

By 2020, Bardella was dating another woman with close ties to the Le Pen circle: Nolwenn Olivier, Marine Le Pen’s niece, who is credited with opening an account on TikTok for him. On social, he appears unflappable, approachable, considered – almost presidential. Attacked for his far-right views by top-rating French YouTuber “Squeezie”, he recently took to TikTok with a written retort, accusing “multimillionaire influencers” of copying and pasting arguments “as crude as they are mendacious” (4,700,000 views and counting).

“He has the kind of fame you’d expect from a model, a reality TV star or a celebrity, even though he’s a politician,” Cassandra, a 17-year-old Bardella supporter, told a documentary by public broadcaster Arte. Philippe Marliere, a professor of French politics at University College London, tells us about 30 per cent of the 18- to 24-year-old vote is drawn to Bardella. “Not all young people, not even a majority of them, are drawn to conservative values, but some of them, for sure. Probably more than in the past.”

Marliere describes Bardella’s young voters as typically white and not university-educated. “It’s a generation which is politically volatile above all – more than being right wing or racist – and that gets information now from social media.” Bardella is also appealing to older right-wing voters, conservative on cultural issues and highly sceptical of immigration’s impact on French society.

Why is French politics in turmoil?

In early June, about 200 million voters across Europe turned out to elect members of the European Parliament. For politicians and pundits, these polls are a bellwether for national sentiment. In France, the National Rally received 31 per cent of the vote, more than double that of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance Party. “They mobilised anger over fuel duties,” says Monash University’s Ben Wellings, of the so-called “gilet jaunes”, or yellow jacket, protests as well as over “immigration, terrorism and security, and relations between French Muslim communities and secular visions for France.” A protest vote against a sitting government is common in these elections, says Romain Fathi, a senior lecturer at ANU, “but the scale of this slap in the face is definitely unprecedented.”

‘There is no third term. What you’ve got is lame duck, and that is what Macron hates. He is a chancer, a buccaneering figure with swagger, wanting to get stuff done.’

Professor Simon Tormey, Deakin University

As the humiliation of the Renaissance Party sunk in, Macron called a snap election that surprised the French public and even members of his government, propelling some 250,000 people into anti-far-right protests in several cities, carrying posters that read, “Young people hate the FN” (Front National) and “Liberty for all, Equality for all and Fraternity with all.”

Said Macron: “France needs a clear majority to move forward with serenity and harmony.” He is just over two years into a five-year term, and the vote will not decide his presidency. The election is a decision on the make-up of the French parliament – the 577 seats of the National Assembly. Parliamentary elections need to be held every five years, but the president can call them once a government has sat for at least 12 months.

To understand why Macron called the election, it’s worth rewinding to 2022. Macron had won a second (and final) presidency, and two months later, his party contested a parliamentary election where his governing coalition, Ensemble, which included Renaissance and several other parties, lost its majority. His prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, was forced into a situation of using a special constitutional power, Article 49.3, that enables a government to bypass a logjam in parliament. “It has upset the French a lot because it means that the government is acting alone,” says Fathi. Borne resigned in January after the passage of controversial immigration laws that strengthened the government’s power to deport some foreigners.

Macron then appointed Gabriel Attal, 35, who is France’s youngest modern prime minister, in an attempt to boost the party’s popularity and fight off rising populism ahead of the European elections. Those elections, however, were the final blow, leaving Macron with more disruption in the parliament and emboldening his critics, says Simon Tormey, a professor of European politics at Deakin University. “Macron is in his second term, and there is no third term,” he says. “What you’ve got is a lame duck, and that is what Macron hates. He is a chancer, a buccaneering figure with swagger, wanting to get stuff done.”

Macron has calculated the election will return his parliamentary majority, says Tormey. “That reintroduces [his] mandate and legitimacy.” Aurelien Mondon, a senior lecturer at the University of Bath, describes Macron’s move as “incredibly risky”. “It is likely to normalise the far right further, whether they win or not, as they will most likely set the agenda in the campaign. Rather than a savvy move, I would qualify that as the actions of a petulant child.”

Macron calls the snap election an opportunity for “clarification”. ANU’s Fathi says parties on Macron’s moderate left and right have been playing political games with the far left and far right. “It’s been extremely difficult for Macron to find allies with the moderate left and the moderate right.” Calling an election, says Fathi, was intended to divide them and make the moderate parties pick a side.

On the right, for a moment, it seemed to be working. News of the election caused chaos in the conservative Republican Party when its leader, Eric Ciotti, advocated an alliance with Le Pen, leading party heavyweights to attempt to oust him. However, Macron appears to have been relying on dividing the left, too. Instead, the left has united under the banner of the New Popular Front, which includes former president Francois Hollande, who has made a surprise comeback for this election.

”Opening up the possibility of government to your main political rivals is sailing close to the wind, politically,” says Monash University’s Ben Wellings. If Macron’s gamble fails, Le Pen’s National Rally could take control of the parliament, in which case Macron would have to share power with a government formed by his opponents. The French call this “cohabitation”, a situation where the president and the prime minister are from opposing political sides (more on that below).

In France, the president and prime minister share the duties of government, with the president ultimately having the upper hand. Macron has broad powers over foreign policy and national defence, can dissolve parliament (as he has just done) and chooses the prime minister, although his pick does need the confidence of the National Assembly. “The prime minister comes from the majority,” says Fathi.

Surprisingly, the prime minister does not have to be a sitting member of parliament; about a quarter since the time of Charles de Gaulle, who ushered in France’s Fifth Republic in 1958, have not been MPs. A president cannot, technically, sack a prime minister but can strongly suggest that they step down; typically, if a prime minister is struggling to lead the government, he or she will be asked to resign.

Cohabitation first occurred in the 1980s when president Francois Mitterand’s socialists lost the parliament to a centre right led by Jacques Chirac. “There were United Nations summits where the French prime minister would fly in his own prime-ministerial aircraft to represent France, and the president would do the same in his own different aircraft,” says Fathi. “In a way, the weirdest thing was the French were quite happy because half of the French felt represented, and so did the other half.”

Mitterand was forced into cohabitation again from 1993 to 1995, this time with conservative politician Edouard Balladur. Chirac’s turn again, this time with Lionel Jospin from 1997 to 2002, followed a snap election – after his government was weakened by protests against pension reform and plans to reduce France’s deficit – that Jospin’s socialist government won.

Should Macron be obliged to appoint Bardella, what might their “cohabitation” look like? “An incredibly tense one,” suggests Ben Wellings.

Where does Le Pen’s party fit in France today?

Bardella is the first person to lead the National Rally party who is not a member of the Le Pen family. It was founded in 1972 as Front National by Jean-Marie Le Pen, a former member of the French Foreign Legion who had served in Vietnam and Algeria. A far-right organisation, it grew out of a neo-fascist movement called the Ordre Nouveau (New Order), which was broadly based on “the defence of the West, a fear of mingling and of otherness, and the search for a ‘third way’ between communism and capitalism,” writes Grégoire Kauffmann in the journal Pouvoirs.

Le Pen had some electoral success as a member of the National Assembly and the European Parliament and ran unsuccessfully for president five times. But he would be best known for his unsavoury views as a Holocaust denier, defender of French colonialism and opponent of Muslim immigration. By 2011, he had largely run his race, and in 2012, leadership of the National Front passed to his daughter, Marine, who endeavoured to “detoxify” the party and make it more acceptable to mainstream voters.

Distancing herself from her father’s views, in 2015, she went so far as to expel him from the party and, in 2018, renamed the party National Rally. Yet, the underlying values remained, says Michel Eltchaninoff, French philosopher and author of the investigative biography Inside the Mind of Marine Le Pen.

“She has been distancing herself from her father for years and even got angry with him,” Eltchaninoff tells us from France. “By softening her speech, by speaking in allusions, she managed to convince a good part of the French that her party no longer had anything to do with the violent and racist National Front of yesteryear. Nobody, or almost no one, at the National Rally is caught in the act of racism or homophobia. But these impulses still exist, silently for the moment, in the party and its electorate.”

‘She wants to reassure and show that she is comfortable among the people – but against the elites.’

Philosopher and author Michel Eltchaninoff on Marine Le Pen

These days, Le Pen presents herself more as a motherly cat lover than a far-right warrior, especially after standing down as party chair in 2022 to make way for Bardella. “She shows her love of pets, she uses humour,” says Eltchaninoff. “She wants to reassure and show that she is comfortable among the people – but against the elites.” In June, the National Rally cut ties with a candidate after discovering he had written an antisemitic post on social media in 2018.

Len Pen, meanwhile, has said that should National Rally win government it will be Bardella who will be prime minister. It is widely believed that her decision to promote him to party leader and to stand down from official party leadership herself (while remaining a potent public figurehead) is to clear the way for her own tilt at the presidency in 2027.

Younger voters, says Ben Wellings, are one of the groups that the far right, radical right and hard right appeal to across Europe. “Young people disaffected with the political system and its abilities to address the various crises with which Gen Z is faced. The other group is middle-aged women, whom Le Pen symbolises.” For his part, Bardella has disavowed the party’s unpalatable past: what, he has asked, would he know about World War II? “I was born in 1995.”

Behind the window dressing, though, says Eltchaninoff, the National Rally’s ideological affiliation “remains that of the extreme right”. “It is based on the idea that the indigenous people are threatened by foreigners who want to conquer the country, by an internal fifth column (the Muslims), and by elites ready to sell the body and soul of the country to these foreign forces. Like the representatives of the far right, she presents history as a plot against ethnic French people and politics as a fight against enemies ready for anything.”

And where does he think Bardella fits into this picture? “Ideologically, he is more right-wing than Marine Le Pen. He discreetly adheres to the theory of the “Great Replacement”, which considers that the elites organise the replacement of the French by Muslim immigrants. Above all, he is very clever and politically plastic.”

He has also been given an easy ride in some quarters, says the University of Bath’s Aurelien Mondon. “Unfortunately, much of the media and those who should scrutinise these politics have taken these actors at their word. This is why we have seen the rise of euphemistic terms such as populism, which are not only less accurate but allow for the normalisation of the far right.“

As for actual policies, the party initially opposed Macron’s controversial raising of the pension age from 62 to 64 in 2023, then appeared to walk this back after criticisms that reversing the change would have a dire effect on the French economy. However, in the lead-up to this election, Bardella has said he would introduce a repeal of the age increase by September, according to Le Monde. Other economic policies include a lower value-added tax on electricity and gas bills from 20 per cent to 5.5 per cent. Says Fathi: “What he says is empty, unrealistic, unfunded on any economic reasoning, but it is simple language that is understood by people who were previously disconnected from French politics.”

‘If I am prime minister, I will pass in the first weeks an immigration law that will facilitate the expulsions of delinquents and Islamists.’

Jordan Bardella

The party’s position on immigration mirrors views Marine Le Pen has expressed for the past decade. “If I am prime minister,” Bardella says, “I will pass in the first weeks an immigration law that will facilitate the expulsions of delinquents and Islamists.” The party also plans to exclude undocumented migrants from state benefits and introduce a “double border” with Europe. He tells a radio talkback caller [translated from French]: “I want to assure everyone today, our fellow countrymen of foreign birth, or foreign origin, who work, who pay their taxes, who pay their contributions, who respect the law, who love our country, have absolutely nothing to fear.”

Could Bardella really become prime minister?

“Some French people, tired of their leaders, want to embark on this unpredictable adventure, a bit like Trump’s voters in 2016 or like Brexit supporters,” says Eltchaninoff. “The unknown is exhilarating and exciting. At the same time, the National Rally embodies order: merciless fight against delinquency, against immigration, against leftists, against liberals.”

To actually become prime minister, Bardella needs to either gain an absolute majority in the National Assembly or form alliances. He has said he would prefer to govern alone. Professor Philippe Marliere of University College London anticipates a chaotic situation where no party receives an absolute majority. If the National Rally falls short by a narrow margin, the party might be able to negotiate with other parties to form a government.

A close result could also force Macron’s party to negotiate a coalition that would return it with diminished power. Or, the left-wing alliance could theoretically succeed. “The union on the left could pay off and, depending on their campaign, they may bring people out of abstention,” Mondon says.

So far, National Rally is leading polls with about 32 per cent of the vote. “It is the favourite for these elections,” says the French publication Le Monde. The left-wing coalition New Popular Front, meanwhile, has 28 per cent, while Macron’s Renaissance Party is in third place with 19 per cent.

“Macron thought that by dissolving parliament, the nation would return him a majority,” says Marliere. “I’m pretty sure this has failed. It won’t work.” (Macron, however, holds hope a “silent majority” of voters will prove to be against political extremes.) The first round of voting is on June 30. Unless a candidate receives a clear majority in their electorate, the top candidates from each go to a second round of voting on July 7.

Marliere says the election is the most dramatic he’s seen in his lifetime. If National Rally were to form a government, it would be the first time the French people had elected a far-right party during this republic. “That’s why it’s historic.”

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