Jordan Bardella (French:[ʒɔʁdanbaʁdɛla]ⓘ; born 13 September 1995) is a French politician who has been the president of theNational Rally (RN) since 2022, after serving as acting president from September 2021 to November 2022 and as vice-president from 2019 to 2022. Bardella has also served as aMember of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019, when he was the lead candidate for the RN in theEuropean Parliament election, and has been aregional councillor ofÎle-de-France since 2015 but resigned from his mandate in 2025.
Before becoming acting president of the RN, Bardella served as vice-president from 2019 to 2021 and the party's spokesman from 2017 to 2019. From 2018 to 2021, he was also president of its youth wing, the Génération Nation (GN), later renamedRassemblement National de la Jeunesse (RNJ).
In June–July 2024, Bardella led the RN-dominated coalition into the2024 French legislative election which resulted in historic gains for thefar-right though significantly below expectations. Shortly after the election, Bardella was elected as chairman of the newPatriots for Europe group in the European Parliament.
Jordan Bardella was born on 13 September 1995 in the relatively underprivileged area ofDrancy,Seine-Saint-Denis, northeast of Paris, as an only child.[1][2]Bardella was predominantly raised by his single mother, a kindergarten assistant, Luisa Bertelli-Motta, born in 1962 inTurin, Piedmont.[3][4][5] His father Olivier Bardella (born 1968 in Montreuil in Seine-Saint-Denis[6] of North Italian, French-Alsatian andFranco-Algerian origin[7][8]) is a small-medium business owner specializing in beverage vending machines.[9][10]
The surname Bardella is found primarily in Northern Italy (Piedmont, Veneto). Jordan Bardella's grandfather - Guerrino Bardella - who works as a carpenter and cabinet maker, arrived in Montreuil in 1960 and in 1963 married Réjane Mada, who was born in 1944 inLa Ferté-sous-Jouarre.[11] Réjane Mada is the daughter of an Algerian from Kabylia,[12][13] Mohand Séghir Mada (1903-1974), born in Guendouz, in the commune ofAit R'Zine, who came to France in the 1930s to work as a construction laborer in Villeurbanne, and his wife, Denise Annette Jaeck, a Parisian of Alsatian origin. Guerrino Bardella and Réjane Mada divorced when Bardella was one year old, and Guerrino settled inCasablanca, Morocco,[14] where he married a Moroccan woman named Hakima.[15][16]
Bardella grew up in a local council tower block in Drancy, "in the eighth floor of a drab high-rise tower."[17][18][19] Bardella claims that, "like many families who live in the neighbourhood", he was "confronted with violence at an early age" and saw how his "mum had difficulty making ends meet". His father was a business owner, living in the wealthier suburb ofMontmorency, and Bardella spent weekends and Wednesdays there.[9] Critics mention that his father had some wealth when Bardella focuses on the social difficulties he had to face growing up in France's poorestdepartment, a social hotspot with the highest proportion ofimmigrants.[20]
In 2012, Bardella became a member of theNational Front (FN) at age 16,[23] and has said he joined "more forMarine Le Pen than for the National Front".[27][28] He then became the FN department secretary ofSeine-Saint-Denis in 2014 at age 19, making him the party's youngest ever departmental official.[29] From 16 February to 30 June 2015, Bardella worked as parliamentary assistant to FN Member of the European ParliamentJean-François Jalkh.[30] During this period, political observers began to consider him a leading figure on issues in the French banlieues within the FN.[31]
Bardella ran in the2015 departmental elections to represent the commune ofTremblay-en-France. He and his fellow candidate, Christine Prus, lost in the second round with 41% of the vote.[32] In the 2015 regional elections, he was a candidate at the head of the FN list in Seine-Saint-Denis and was elected to theRegional Council of Île-de-France.[33]
In January 2016, Bardella launched the organizationBanlieues Patriotes. The group sought to "break with the politics of the city and reach out to voters in the forgotten territories of the Republic."[34] He then became part of Marine Le Pen's campaign team in the2017 presidential election, in which she finished second.[35] Bardella was a candidate forSeine-Saint-Denis's 12th constituency in the legislative elections that year, and was eliminated in the first round with 15% of the vote.[36][37]
Vice-President of the National Rally and Member of the European Parliament (2017–2021)
After the FN's defeat in the 2017 presidential election and the resignation of vice-presidentFlorian Philippot, Bardella was appointed party spokesman alongsideSébastien Chenu andJulien Sanchez.[38][39][40] The next year, Le Pen also appointed him president of the Front National de la Jeunesse (FNJ), which later becameGénération Nation (GN).[41][42][43]
Bardella was named second vice-president of the RN on 16 June 2019, and first vice-president in 2021.[52] He headed the RN list in the2021 French regional elections in Île-de-France, receiving 13.8% of the vote in the first round and 10.8% in the second. By contrast, the right-wing list led byValérie Pécresse won with 46% of the vote.[53][54] Journalist Richard Werly attributed the defeat to Bardella's "inability to find a convincing regional angle despite his familial connections [to the region]" and "lack of depth in a university-educated region, having abandoned his post-secondary studies."[55] An opposition member, he resigned from his mandate in February 2025 in a context of high absenteeism rates (73% in 2023).[56]
Bardella became acting president of the National Rally after Le Pen resigned to run in the2022 French presidential election.[57] Bardella was elected president of the National Rally on 5 November 2022, beatingLouis Aliot by 85% to 15% of party members who voted.[58][59]
He takes the lead of the third group in the European Parliament,Patriots for Europe, initiated by Hungarian prime ministerViktor Orban.[60][61] The latter gives the far-right group the objectives of positioning itself against "military support for Ukraine" and against "illegal immigration" and for the "traditional family" and "easing environmental constraints". One of the six vice-presidents of this group is the Italian politicianRoberto Vannacci. Bardella also joined the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET), which is described by Euractiv as "an opportunity to gain depth on international issues."[62]
Bardella helped bring theRN to victory during the 2024 European Parliament election as the party achieved a score of 31.37%, gaining 30 seats, coming in first place in front of the presidential party-list led byValérie Hayer (14.60%, 13 seats).[63]
On 31 March, Marine Le Pen was found guilty of embezzling EU funds and sentenced to a four-year prison sentence, of which two years would be suspended, whilst also being barred from running in the2027 French presidential election.[66] As Bardella was not involved in the scandal, he quickly became the front-runner to be the RN candidate.[67][68]
During his campaign in the 2019 European elections, Bardella said that his generation's two political priorities are the migrant crisis and the environmental crisis, saying, "if humans are responsible for what seems to be climate change, our economic model depends on it." He also opposed French entry into newfree trade treaties.[69] Bardella criticized the "punitive environmentalism" of theMacron government, which he argued was "criminalizing French people."[70] In May 2019, Bardella evoked but did not name theGreat Replacement conspiracy theory during a televised debate.[71]
Bardella, like his party, focuses on migration. He says that immigration could lead to the extinction of France, the French identity, French sovereignty, and "France's soul". He also believes that theEuropean Union further degrades these values, according to his demands at the EU's campaign meetings.[20] Shortly after the2024 European parliament election, Bardella said he intended to abolishbirthright citizenship.[73] It grants children of foreigners born and living in FranceFrench citizenship.[74]
Bardella adheres to theGreat Replacement conspiracy theory.[75]Le Monde reported that he promotes this theory during his speeches to activists, "using every possible circumlocution to avoid calling it 'the Great Replacement,' as the term was banned by Marine Le Pen."[76] He also wanted to "cut off social assistance to people living in France illegally."[77]
Jordan Bardella calls for an "economic program in favor of business and entrepreneurship" and criticizes France as "the European champion of taxes and duties." He thus calls for the abolition of the social solidarity contribution of companies, used to finance old-age insurance, and the contribution on the added value of companies (CVAE). Two taxes which, according toLibération, mainly concern CAC 40 companies. He welcomes Emmanuel Macron's decision to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25%.[78] He also supports the payment of the RSA conditional on 15 hours of compulsory activity,[79] and returns, in June 2024, to the National Rally's promise to repeal the pension reform if it comes to power.[80]
According to Le Monde, Bardella's right-wing positioning on economic issues also corresponds to a division of roles withMarine Le Pen, the latter targeting primarily the working classes and him the upper middle classes and retirees.[81] Unlike Le Pen, Bardella also favours pro-business andeconomic liberal policies, influenced by the economic agenda of Italian Prime MinisterGiorgia Meloni.[82][83][84]
His positions on environmental and ecological issues are characterized by a desire for political ideological division. A fervent defender of the car, he positions himself in favor of meat consumption and "in the fight against constraints in favor of the environment".[85] The essayist Pierre Madelin affirms that the party he leads is showing opportunism in appropriating the climate issue and putting it at the service of identity and nationalist themes.[86] He thus declares that "The best ally of ecology is the border" and launches alongsideMarine Le Pen's "Stopwind turbines" campaign, the latter being considered by Jordan Bardella as a "tragedy for the environment".[87][88]
Bardella has stressed that environmental protection should not be left to the politicalleft, but talks about it as a form ofpatriotism, stating that patriotism means the protection of the people and their environment.[89] With that statement he associates theclimate crisis with theanti-immigrant stance of theRN, since he agrees with the left wing that the climate crisis will lead to an unstoppable globalmass refugee crisis. Bardella and the RN base their immigration positions on the pursuit of political and ideological divisions, which must be exploited. They want to take advantage of the gap between urban and rural, or peripheral, spaces and attitudes.[85]
In early 2024, Jordan Bardella took advantage of the2024 French farmers' protests to launch an offensive against "punitive ecology", which he called "the restrictive standards adopted in France and Europe to restore biodiversity and reduce CO2 emissions." He fueled a divide between "elites versus the people, urban versus rural" to mobilize his electorate. Le Monde noted, however, that Jordan Bardella never addressed the issue of sharing "value and responsibility" between the agri-food industry and large-scale distribution, which is considered crucial, particularly by livestock farmers, and that he also never addressed the subject of climate change and its consequences for agriculture.[90] Interviewed on 29 January 2024, he declared, regarding Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, "I expect him to renounce theEuropean Green Deal."[91]
Bardella has expressed personal opposition tosame-sex marriage on the grounds that it will open the door tosurrogacy ormedically assisted reproduction.[92] Nevertheless, he has accepted that "for the majority of France, marriage for all is now a given" and stated his support for acitizens' initiative referendum on the topic in 2019. He has also said he will not campaign to abolish same-sex marriage as leader of the National Rally, arguing that debate on the matter is over and that France faces more pressing issues.[93] Bardella also advocates "cutting social services for people who illegally arrived in France" and legalizingcannabis for medical purposes.[94][95]
According toLe Monde, Bardella can "boast of having woven closer ties" with former Italian Minister for Internal AffairsMatteo Salvini, whom he views as a role model. He is also believed to be close toMarine Le Pen's adviserFrédéric Chatillon, having at one point been in a relationship with his daughter.[96][97] At the same time, Bardella has said he is close to Le Pen.[96] In 2021, he posted statements of support forGénération Identitaire, a far-right organization the French government had dissolved for inciting racial hatred and violence, on Facebook. Facebook removed the posts and suspended certain features of his account.[98]
In February 2023, Bardella applauded a speech byVolodymyr Zelensky in the European Parliament.[99] Regarding theRussian invasion of Ukraine, Bardella expressed the belief that Putin is waging a wider war on the West and that that "there is a war of interest and a war of influence between France and Russia that extends to Africa." He also declared that there can be no way out of the war "without the withdrawal of Russian troops and without the return to full sovereignty of Ukraine in the territories currently occupied by Russia" . However, a spokesperson for Bardella later clarified toLibération that this statement does not concern Crimea and the other territories controlled by pro-Russian secessionists since theDonbass war.[100][101] In September 2023,La Tribune analyzed that Bardella's stance on Russia is more critical compared to that ofMarine Le Pen and that "Jordan Bardella is on the pro-American line ofGiorgia Meloni."[102] In July 2024, in theEuropean Parliament, he voted against a resolution to aid Ukraine in the context of Russian invasion of Ukraine.[103] Although Bardella supported providing ammunition and defensive equipment to Ukraine, he is opposed to sending French soldiers or long-range missiles to Ukraine,[104][105] and opposesUkrainian membership in NATO.[106]
In March 2025, Bardella attended aconference inIsrael aimed at combattingantisemitism. This event was notable for its attendance of right-wing allies, which also led to some high-profile people set to attend from 'boycotting' the event in protest, including the UK'sChief Rabbi. Bardella supports Israel in theGaza war and believes that the Hamas threat facing Israel is equivalent to the threat posed by radicalIslamists and terrorists to France.[107][108]
Initially in a relationship with Kelly Betesh,[109] he also had a relationship with Kerridwen Chatillon between 2017 and 2018, from theGUD group and daughter ofFrédéric Chatillon and Marie d'Herbais, regular host of Jean-Marie Le Pen's video blog.[110]
Bardella was in a relationship with Nolwenn Olivier from 2020 to 2024, daughter ofMarie-Caroline Le Pen, Marine's elder sister.[111]
Guerrino Bardella, Jordan Bardella's paternal grandfather, settled inMorocco (inCasablanca), where he has a 10-year residence permit, and married a Moroccan woman.[112]
He denied rumors that he isgay in an interview onM6 June 2025, declaring "I am heterosexual". Responding to TikTok videos that claims he is, he attributed those to social media user's "unlimited imagination". When pressed further on the persistent rumors and if there was any truth, he answered, "I could say the opposite to please you, but … there's not the shadow of a doubt."[114][115]
On 5 November 2023, Jordan Bardella declared onBFM TV that he "did not believe thatJean-Marie Le Pen was antisemitic",[116] despite his numerous convictions by the courts on this subject, including in 1990, for his minimization ofthe Holocaust program carried out with the gas chambers byNazi Germany; statements that the honorary president of theNational Rally maintained in 2015.[117][118] A few months later, he retracted his remarks, acknowledging a clumsiness, admitting that Jean-Marie Le Pen's remarks were "eminently antisemitic remarks".[119]
Accusations of racist and homophobic remarks on Twitter
On 18 January 2024, in the programComplément d'enquête, three former close associates of Jordan Bardella claimed that he maintained and used, between 2015 and 2017, an anonymousX (formerly Twitter) account called "RepNat du Gaito", on which he allegedly made racist and homophobic remarks, insulted journalists, and glorified Le Pen.[120] Based on two other sources formerly close to Jordan Bardella,Libération confirmed the information.[121] Furthermore, Marine Le Pen was a subscriber to this Twitter account until the revelations inComplément d'enquête. However, the person concerned denies that this account belongs to him.[122]
The party's press officer, Victor Chabert, accusedComplément d'enquête of defamation and declared that the channel would be prosecuted. Meanwhile,France 2 reportedly received a formal notice the same day.[123][124]
After Ali Rabeh, a Muslim, was re-elected as mayor ofTrappes in 2021, Bardella described the city as an "Islamic republic" on the radio stationEurope 1. He then announced on 2 February 2022, that he was indicted for this statement, saying "I am disappointed that the French justice system pursues the same goal today as the Islamists, to silence those who denounce real issues and those who oppose the transformation of countless neighbourhoods in France."[125][126]
Suspicions regarding fake employment at the European Parliament
In 2019,Challenges revealed that Jordan Bardella had been a part-time parliamentary assistant of the Member of EU ParliamentJean-François Jalkh during 2015, and that he had been identified by the EU Parliament in 2017 as being part of the assistants linked to "irregular use of the parliamentary assistant compensation".[127][128]Le Canard enchaîné revealed later that he had been similarly suspected by theEuropean Anti-Fraud Office, since 2016.[129]
In September 2024,La Machine à gagnant (The Winning Machine), a book by Libération journalist Tristan Berteloot, was published. He claims that Jordan Bardella helped produce false proof of employment to retrospectively justify his work as a parliamentary assistant.[130][131][132] Jordan Bardella denies the accusations, claims to have "never had to justify anything or even provide the slightest document," and announces that he intends to file a complaint against Libération.[133]
Dov Alfon, the publishing director of the daily newspaper Libération, is being sued for defamation for an article published on 26 September 2023. The hearing was held on 31 January 2025. Jordan Bardella also filed a complaint regarding the articles and book published in 2024, but the hearings have not yet taken place.[134] On 21 March 2025, Jordan Bardella lost his defamation lawsuit, granting Libération the right to run the headline that Jordan Bardella was a "ghost parliamentary assistant".[135]
On 25 March 2025, according to Libération, a complaint was filed against Jordan Bardella and Jean-François Jalkh by the Association for the Ecologist Defense of Democracy and Freedoms (Adelibe) for "fraud".[136] The anti-corruption association took this action following the newspaper's accusations published in September 2024.[137]
^"The French far right's Giorgia Meloni problem".Le Monde. 30 May 2025.Archived from the original on 30 May 2025.Bardella, on the other hand, is solely focused on Meloni's brand of national conservatism, with its economically liberal policies
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