Jordan Bardella’s breakneck ascent to the summit of French politics has hit a sudden, perilous snag: the 31-year-old lieutenant of Marine Le Pen is now battling to protect his future after claims he posted antisemitic comments as a teenager in 2013.
Only a week earlier, the outlook for Mr Bardella appeared bright. Polling was pointing to Ms Le Pen winning the presidency on her fourth try, a result that would position the National Rally (RN) president as the likely choice for prime minister.
That trajectory was jolted on Monday when the investigative website Mediapart reported allegations that Mr Bardella wrote a series of antisemitic messages in 2013. On Thursday, Mediapart escalated the dispute by publishing screenshots of the alleged Facebook Messenger exchanges.
Mr Bardella responded by going on the offensive. He rejected the claims outright, accused political opponents of waging a “total war” to halt the RN’s drive for the Élysée, and said he would sue Mediapart for publishing what he called fabricated material.
Ms Le Pen initially stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him, echoing his denial as she addressed party MPs on Tuesday.
After the screenshots appeared on Thursday, however, she largely fell silent—an unusual posture for a politician known for quick counterpunches. Her only public remark since then was a short statement to La Tribune Dimanche this weekend: “I have complete confidence in Jordan”.
One analyst believes Marine Le Pen will ‘pull the plug’ on her running mate
Mr Bardella’s combative stance suggests he intends to outlast the storm. Whether he can do so may hinge on whether Mediapart has further claims to publish—and, above all, on how long Ms Le Pen is willing to keep him at her side.
He has played a central role in Ms Le Pen’s “de-demonisation” effort, the long-running campaign to scrub away the party’s toxic inheritance from its founder, her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was openly antisemitic.
In 2025, Mr Bardella made a high-profile trip to Israel—the first such visit by a French far-right leader—aimed at showcasing what the RN presents as its new political identity.
He travelled at the invitation of Amichai Chikli, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government who has courted relationships with several European far-right parties despite their histories of antisemitism.
“Marine Le Pen had to back Jordan Bardella so as not to alienate voters who would not forgive her for abandoning him,” said sociologist Erwan Lecoeur, a specialist on the far right.
But he added: “My belief is that Marine Le Pen will pull the plug on” Mr Bardella, arguing that the harder he fights to defend himself “the deeper he digs himself into a hole – taking the RN down with him”.
The controversy has also broken amid months of reporting about strains between Mr Bardella and Ms Le Pen—particularly around a proposal to ban the Muslim headscarf in public—even as both have projected unity in public.
“I don’t think she necessarily has to get rid of him,” said Marta Lorimer, lecturer in politics at Cardiff University.
“They will try to use whatever they can to defend his position,” she said.
“But my suspicion is if we see Bardella ousted it is not going to be because of this but because of possibly broader tensions with Le Pen. For the time being that does not seem to be the case.”
‘Contaminate the candidate’
In RN circles, there has also been talk that some party figures would prefer Mr Bardella to step aside and that Ms Le Pen’s de-facto running mate role could be filled by someone else—names floated include Eric Ciotti, the leader of an allied far-right party, and her niece Marion Marechal, who heads her own extreme-right movement.
Online speculation has added another volatile layer, with social media users suggesting the allegations may have originated inside the RN—triggering an angry search for the “taupe” (mole).
Mr Bardella has acknowledged the gravity of the moment, saying the goal is to “kill my political career”.
His choice to deny everything categorically has, in turn, exposed him to claims that he is misleading the public.
“Do we want a prime minister who is not only antisemitic but also lies to the French people in the face of damning evidence?” asked Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin.
Socialist leader Olivier Faure said: “We are dealing with two things here – his antisemitism and lying in politics. Neither is forgivable.”
Even as RN leaders have moved quickly to rally behind Mr Bardella, Le Monde cautioned that the party’s show of solidarity could carry political costs for Ms Le Pen.
“The RN is closing ranks… in the hope that the storm will pass, at the risk of seeing the discredit attached to Jordan Bardella contaminate the presidential candidate,” it said.
