Jordan Bardella, president of France’s National Rally (Rassemblement National) and close political ally of Marine Le Pen, is facing allegations of making antisemitic and conspiracy-driven remarks attributed to him during his youth, according to a report by the Reuters news agency. The unfolding scandal threatens the party’s carefully managed public standing ahead of upcoming presidential elections and has ignited sharp internal friction within its ranks.
1+The storm erupted following a report by French investigative news site Mediapart, which published private exchanges attributed to the 31-year-old party leader containing alleged antisemitic remarks. Bardella has forcefully denied the allegations, calling the messages outright fabrications and announcing his intention to file defamation lawsuits against those who published them.
At the center of the controversy are private communications from 2013 in which Bardella was allegedly documented voicing a series of harsh antisemitic tropes. Among other claims, the leaks alleged he wrote that Jews own all banks, that Jews seek to dominate other nations and establish a new world order led by Israel, and that he amplified conspiracy theories linking Israel’s Mossad to the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Bardella firmly rejected the claims, saying the messages were fabricated.
1+The scandal confronts the National Rally with a profound test, arriving after more than a decade of calculated efforts by Marine Le Pen to distance the political party from the antisemitic stigma that historically attached to it. Bardella himself had previously visited Israel as part of the party’s broader push to project a definitive break from the legacy of party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was repeatedly convicted for antisemitic statements and Holocaust denial.
Among Bardella’s vocal critics is Joseph Martin, a former National Rally candidate whose endorsement was rescinded in 2024 over suspected antisemitic posts. Although the party later ruled the post was not antisemitic and cleared him to run, it rejected his request to run under the party banner in subsequent elections. Martin is now demanding that Bardella be suspended from his leadership position pending an investigation into the allegations, mirroring the strict standard previously applied to others in the party.