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Jordan Bardella does not look like the typical European politician. But at the age of just 23, the rising star of the French far-right is top of the list of candidates for Marine Le Pen's Rassemblent National for elections to the European Parliament in May. Opinion polls suggest the party, which was called the Front National when it was run by Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, will beat that of the liberal President Emmanuel Macron, and be the most popular among all the French parties in the European vote.
In an interview with the FT, Bardella said the idea was to team up with the other rightwing nationalist parties that have risen in the EU in recent years in the UK, Italy, and eastern Europe, to try to reduce the power of the European Commission, and eventually make the EU no more than a secretariat for a club of nation states.
Yet the real goal of Marine Le Pen and Bardella is to come to power at home in France, on a programme of trade protectionism and adamant opposition to immigration. The RN has benefited from weeks of so-called gilets jaunes, or yellow vest protests against President Macron and his government. Marine Le Pen's poor performance in a debate with Macron sank any chance she might have had of defeating him in the 2017 presidential election. Even so, an overwhelmingly white party, that for decades seemed unelectable in modern France because of its reputation for racism, has been revived by her drive to improve its image, and to bring in new blood.
Bardella said he hoped his party's opposition to immigration would help the RN, both in domestic politics and in the European vote in May.
Bardella and the RN are likely to do well in the European elections, because the results are based on proportional representation. And voters often want to make a protest vote by choosing an extreme party they might shun in the national poll. The question after that is whether Marine Le Pen's party can ride Europe's populist wave to take power in a French domestic election.
