Jordan Bardella, the president of the hard-right National Rally (RN) party, is at the center of a new controversy in France following an investigative article published by Mediapart on Monday. The report alleges that Bardella made a series of antisemitic and conspiratorial remarks during private conversations between 2013 and 2015. At that time, Bardella had recently celebrated his 18th birthday on 13 September 2013 and was preparing for his future role as the National Front's departmental secretary in Seine-Saint-Denis, a position he assumed a year later.
According to the investigative outlet, the report is the result of a months-long investigation based on dozens of written conversations that Mediapart claims to have independently verified. The outlet stated that these exchanges were drawn from a wider body of evidence and supplemented by witness accounts. The report alleges that Bardella promoted conspiracy theories targeting Jewish political figures or individuals believed to be linked to Israel. In one specific conversation, he is reported to have said: "The Jew must dominate other peoples, crush them and rob them; a Zionist is necessarily a Jew, and one through and through." Furthermore, he is reported to have stated: "And that is what they want: a New World Order dominated by Israel, with Jerusalem, of course, as its capital."
When contacted by Mediapart prior to the publication of the article, Bardella reportedly "formally" denied the allegations. He later took to X to address the claims, labeling them "blatant fabrications." In his statement, Bardella wrote: "I formally refute the accusations levelled against me by Mediapart, which attribute to me delusional and antisemitic remarks that I allegedly made whilst I was a minor." He further characterized the report as a smear campaign orchestrated by "certain militant sections of the press" intended to destabilize his presidential campaign and undermine his reputation. Bardella added that he has instructed a lawyer to take all necessary legal action against the outlet.
Marine Le Pen, a close ally and leader within the National Rally, has publicly defended her protégé. While visiting a construction trade fair in Paris on Monday, she dismissed the report, stating that she could not "believe such nonsense" and accused Mediapart of resorting to "dirty tricks" and "smear campaigns." These allegations arrive as the National Rally leadership has spent several years attempting to distance the party from a legacy marked by antisemitic comments from its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
