HIS PARENTS, of Italian origin, might have chosen a name that tied him to the ancestral homeland. Or a solid French moniker that would not have marked him out. But no, Luisa and Olivier named their only son Jordan. “Seriously? Are you really called Jordan?” asked an incredulous party hack he met in Paris. “Why,” he asked his mother in exasperation one evening, “did you give me this name?”
Today Jordan Bardella is a household name in France, and “Jor-dan” an affectionate chant at political rallies. At just 29 years old he is the president of Marine Le Pen’s hard-right National Rally (RN), the protégé she spotted young and promoted fast. A week ago Mr Bardella was being lined up as a potential future prime minister in 2027 under a President Le Pen. But on March 31st a court in Paris convicted her of misusing public funds and banned her from running for office for five years. Unless Ms Le Pen appeals successfully, Mr Bardella could be the party’s presidential candidate.
The tall, usually clean-shaven Mr Bardella has a backstory that reads as if crafted by a campaign director to complement Ms Le Pen’s. He grew up with a divorced mother in a tower block in Seine-Saint-Denis, a grim northern suburb of Paris; she, in a mansion on the leafy western edge of the capital. Outside his home, he heard the banter of drug-dealers; she, the sounds of birdsong. Mr Bardella has held no job outside politics, dropping out of university and securing his first local party post at the age of 18; Ms Le Pen is a trained lawyer, who for years swore that politics was not her thing.
Mr Bardella’s home life was not quite as harsh as some accounts make out. The young Jordan attended the local private Catholic school: not grand, but quietly disciplined, and a place where he could study away from the turbulence of state-school classrooms in the neighbourhood. His father took him as a child each year to Morocco, where his Italian grandfather had settled, and bought him a car when he was a teenager. Nonetheless, Mr Bardella’s upbringing gives him a grounding and a credibility among ordinary French voters, now matched by popularity. On TikTok, where he has a 2m-strong following, Mr Bardella does the normal-guy routine to perfection, cheerfully signing copies of his book for giggling teenaged girls and eating bags of multi-coloured Haribo sweets.
Mr Bardella last year published his autobiography, which uses 324 pages to cover his 29 years. In it he comes across as geeky and somewhat anti-social, spending long hours playing “Call of Duty” and “FIFA” online. Perhaps because of this, as well as self-discipline, he now spends hours meticulously preparing each television appearance. Inside the RN he has his detractors, not least because of his rapid rise. He was first drawn to it by Ms Le Pen’s transformation of a fringe extremist movement into a “patriotic” party aspiring to govern. When he was 23 Ms Le Pen picked him to lead the RN into European Parliament elections. Partly due to her mentoring he won election as the party’s official head in 2022. One insider calls him “ruthless”.
Even Mr Bardella’s autobiography, however, does not flesh out much of what he really believes in, apart from France’s right to keep foreigners out and the badness of globalisation, excess regulation from Brussels, President Emmanuel Macron and all things woke. He sees no contradiction between his family’s immigrant origins (they integrated) and his fears about a new subversive wave of incomers (they don’t). On most policy matters Mr Bardella is closely aligned with Ms Le Pen: tough on immigration, fairly relaxed on social mores (as long as they are not those of hardline Islamists).
When it comes to Russia and Ukraine, though, there are nuances. Ms Le Pen, whose party once took a loan from a Russian bank (since repaid), tends to fault Mr Macron for exaggerating the Russian threat; Mr Bardella is more apt to criticise Vladimir Putin. Mr Bardella has also begun to make his own mark. Last month he visited Israel: a gesture of solidarity, an attempt to turn the page on his party’s antisemitic past and an appeal to the French Jewish voter. “You have the same enemy as us,” he told an Israeli soldier who showed him photos of charred victims of Islamist terrorism.
Ms Le Pen insists that she will still run for the presidency. Her appeal should be heard by next summer. This would mean, until then, keeping their informal ticket as it is. Mr Bardella says he owes the RN leader everything, and swears by his loyalty to her. Ms Le Pen is his creator, mentor, counsellor. Before any big event, he says, he always calls her for advice. Should Ms Le Pen’s ban be confirmed, the weight of a presidential challenge would be heavy. But Mr Bardella will doubtless now begin to contemplate the prospect, and prepare his mind for it, without giving away any hint of betraying the woman who made him what he is today. ■
