France's far right has a new face and a softer message. Will it be enough for a historic win?
CBC
He's just 28 years old, but Jordan Bardella, the leader of France's Rassemblement National, carries himself with the air of someone who has practised politics over a much longer lifetime.
Earlier this week in Paris, the leader of the country's surging far-right party confidently strolled up to a podium with France's tricoloured flag next to him and spent the next 90 minutes reciting his plans for turning the country's government on its head.
"We are credible, responsible and respect French institutions," Bardella said as he went point by point through his party's platform.
Chief among his targets are policies and programs related to legal and illegal immigration, including cutting child care, health care and welfare benefits for immigrants. Bardella has repeatedly linked the issues of crime and insecurity in France to immigration, which his party says must be reigned in.
He also said the RN, as the party is known, would give French citizens priority for jobs over people who have recently arrived and is proposing to block dual citizens from certain government posts. In a subsequent interview, Bardella acknowledged that if he becomes France's prime minister, he will also move forward with a law to "combat Islamist ideologies" — specifically giving him the power to close certain mosques and deport imams that the government deems to have been radicalized.
On key foreign policy issues, Bardella said his goal is to reduce France's contributions to the budget of the EU by up to three billion euros — a cut of more than 10 per cent. While not necessarily a first step toward "French Brexit," the idea nonetheless caused shudders for many who want to keep the European Union at the heart of the country's political and economic fabric.
And while Bardella spoke of the need to contain "Russian interference," he also said he would restrict how French weapons could be used by Ukraine and ruled out the possibility of a French training mission there — both moves that opponents see as helping Vladimir Putin.
Bardella's speech represented the culmination of a decades-long evolution of far-right politics in France.
The Rassemblement National was rebranded in 2018 from the former National Front party, which openly embraced neo-Nazi ideology and downplayed the Holocaust. Party organizers hope French voters will embrace it as a more moderate, electable right-of-centre option, led by a charismatic leader in Bardella, who's part of the TikTok generation (he's got 1.7 million followers there).
"I think that his personality, the way he talks, the way he proposes new laws to French people, is very popular today," the RN's chief spokesperson, Laurent Jacobelli, told CBC News in an interview.
"That's why people want to give him a chance to save our country."
Bardella's stratospheric rise to become the most talked about figure in French politics began when he joined the National Front in 2012 at 16 years old. He had started university in Paris, but never finished, opting to devote his energies to politics instead.
The son of Italian immigrants, he proved to be a quick study. He learned how to run political campaigns and won election to the European Parliament himself in 2019 at the age of 23, making him the second-youngest member ever.
Along the way, Bardella caught the eye of then RN leader Marine Le Pen, who later supported him for party leader when she stepped down to run for France's presidency in 2022 (she was unsuccessful).
