MEP Jordan Bardella, 27, has been elected this Saturday as the new president of the National Regrouping (RN, former National Front). For the first time since its founding more than half a century ago, France's far-right party has a leader not named Le Pen. Bardella resoundingly prevailed, in a vote of the members, to the mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot. The former received almost 85% of the votes.
Bardella had already held the interim presidency since Marine Le Pen launched her last campaign at the Elysée, but from now on the MEP is in command in an official and consolidated manner. However, the founder's daughter will continue to have enormous influence and it is not ruled out that she will run again for the head of state in 2027. During her speech, Marine Le Pen said that she is not going on vacation, that she is still "mobilized", and he will be "wherever the country and the national community need me".
The new president has made a meteoric career, thanks, in part, to his telegenics and his dialectical skills. The French media often portray him as "the ideal son-in-law". Bardella, in fact, never loses his temper at gatherings or in interviews, avoids outbursts and tends to skilfully cover up the most extreme and controversial aspects of his party. His campaign in the last Europeans showed his potential, since the RN was the most voted party.
Marine Le Pen highlighted, in her speech at the congress held in Paris, that one of her "greatest prides" was having contributed to creating "a young generation of the political elite". According to her, the RN "is prepared" to exercise power. The polls seem to agree with him, since more and more French people consider that the RN is already a government party and not a protest party, as when it was led by Jean-Marie Le Pen. Marine Le Pen obtained more than 41% of the vote in the presidential elections in April and the party won 89 deputies in the legislative elections in June, the best result ever achieved.
The process of political normalization of the RN, of which the election of Bardella as president is a symbol, has collided, however, with the incident caused last week by a deputy from the party, Grégoire de Fouras, whose racist comment addressed to a parliamentarian black has earned him the expulsion of the Chamber for fifteen days and the reduction of salary by half for two months.
