Bardella Denies Antisemitic Claims
National Rally Leader Jordan Bardella Denies Mediapart Report of Antisemitic Messages
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Investigative outlet Mediapart alleges that private messages from 2013 to 2015 show National Rally leader Jordan Bardella making antisemitic and conspiratorial remarks, including claims about Jewish control of banks and a world order dominated by Israel. Mediapart says it authenticated the messages and consulted former party colleagues. Bardella calls the messages fabrications and says he will pursue legal action; Marine Le Pen has dismissed the report as a dirty trick. The allegations renew scrutiny of the RN’s efforts to shed its racist and antisemitic image as Le Pen’s prospects in the 2027 presidential election strengthen. Bardella, a prominent figure in that rebranding and a potential prime minister if Le Pen wins, has previously sought to demonstrate the party’s changed stance, including through a visit to Israel.
Key Points
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Mediapart also attributed to Bardella the message: “The Jew has to dominate other peoples, crush them, and rob them; a Zionist is necessarily a Jew, and fundamentally so.”
2
The alleged messages date to summer 2013, when Bardella was 17 or 18; he had joined the National Front about a year and a half earlier, according to Mediapart’s account.
3
Bardella was the RN’s de facto presidential candidate until July, when an appeals court cleared Marine Le Pen to run for president.
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A poll reported on Monday put Le Pen first in the following April’s first-round vote and projected her beating both left-wing and centrist candidates in a May runoff.
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A series of antisemitic, Islamophobic and racist comments by RN candidates had already undermined the party’s hopes of winning a parliamentary majority in France’s legislative vote.
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