Jordan Bardella is only 28 years old. How do you explain his rapid rise?
He is only 28 years old, but he has already had a 12-year political career. He was twice a regional councillor for Île-de-France. He has just completed a five-year term in the European Parliament. He is not a newcomer. What you need to know is that behind Jordan Bardella, there is Marine Le Pen.
What do you mean ?
That he would not be where he is today without the total and continuous support of Marine Le Pen since 2017. The National Rally (RN) invested a lot of money in him, in media training, then in storytelling, to make him a young and attractive figure. They made sure that Jordan Bardella embodied the strategy of de-demonization of the RN wanted by Marine Le Pen.
Is he a bit of a spearhead of this de-demonization?
He embodies it. At a very young age, he understood that there were positions to be taken at the RN for young, de-demonized wolves. Exit the skinheads and the overly obvious racists. Make way for the younger, slightly refreshed generation. It worked. Marine Le Pen noticed him for that. Physically, he presents well. He never slips, even if he publicly adheres to the theory of the “Great Replacement”, which is deeply xenophobic, conspiratorial and racist.
PHOTO LEWIS JOLY, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, June 9
In short, he may not be the “ideal son-in-law” that is often described…
There is a marketing showcase that has been worked on for a long time and handled by professionals. But behind the veneer of communication, we see a young man who has been in the RN since the age of 15, who is imbued with the Le Penist thinking of Jean-Marie Le Pen [fondateur du parti et père de Marine]. He got into politics surrounded by radicals, people who were openly anti-Semitic, racist or homophobic. What I also reveal in my book is the anonymous Twitter account he ran between 2015 and 2017, a publication with xenophobic, homophobic and racist undertones, on which he even quoted Alain Soral, who is a notorious anti-Semite in France.
So he would have evolved in a constellation close to neo-Nazism?
Above all, don’t make me say that Bardella is a neo-Nazi. I’m not saying that. But it is clear that some of these networks have taken him that far, notably a certain Frédéric Chatillon, who was his father-in-law and above all a GUD executive. [Groupe union défense]a far-right student union [officiellement dissous la semaine dernière par le ministère de l’Intérieur]. Frédéric Chatillon brought a very strong anti-Semitism to the GUD. He organized striped pajama parties to mock the Holocaust, meals for Hitler’s birthday. He never denied this commitment… These people took care of Bardella’s communication through the company e-politic, which is linked by shareholders to the GUD galaxy. They used their influence to make him rise within the RN apparatus, so he is indebted to these networks. They are still close. Chatillon and Bardella regularly spend their holidays together on the Côte d’Azur.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY PRODUCTION
The great replacement
Jordan Bardella grew up in the “93”, in the Paris region. What does this tell us about the character?
The 93 is the department in France with the most immigration. He grew up in the Gabriel Péri estate in Saint-Denis, with a rather modest mother who worked as a maintenance worker in a school. He built his entire storytelling on this in order to speak to the working classes. On the other hand, he completely ignored the other half of his life, that is to say his father. His parents divorced when he was 3 years old. Even if he lived with his mother on a daily basis, his father was present. He probably financed his studies in a private Catholic establishment. He gave him a car when he was 19. He made an apartment available to him when he was 20. In reality, he had a foot in two environments.
In your book, you almost describe Bardella as a laboratory creature. You say that he was taught to smile, to be warm, to debate, to show himself in the media. Is the creature escaping from his creators?
No, I don’t think so. Jordan is 28 years old, has never worked in a company in his life. Hasn’t studied at university. Has never managed a department, a region, a city, a ministry. He has shown little involvement in his activities as an elected official. We can legitimately wonder if he has what it takes to lead a country. If he takes Matignon [la résidence du premier ministre]the real prime minister will be Marine Le Pen. He is no longer a puppet, but he remains her instrument, her spokesperson. He has no real political autonomy.
Basically, your book is like a warning to the French. Be careful, know who you are going to vote for…
That’s not wrong. At the beginning, when I started, I was a bit like everyone else, I saw the image of this young man with slicked back hair, very clean, smart suit and everything. As my investigation progressed, I discovered who was behind him, what his networks were, the whole production of the Bardella product. Little by little it became clear to me that he is a showcase, the tree that hides the forest, but that behind Bardella, it is always the same people. It is the historic Le Penist movement that has been there for 40 years, whose ideas we know. What seems clear to me, after a year and a half of investigation into this milieu, is that if Jordan Bardella enters Matignon, he will have to appoint ministers, prefects, key people to key positions. It seems obvious to me, given his career, that the radicals will be there, in his wake, and will obtain important positions. What will their influence be at the highest level of the State? Will it be an official role or a discreet role of evening visitors? That is the whole question…