Jordan Bardella Steps Back as Marine Le Pen Reasserts Leadership in French Far-Right Party

PARIS — Jordan Bardella spent months preparing to replace Marine Le Pen as France’s far-right presidential candidate. Now he has a different challenge: falling back in line behind her.

In just a few days, the two leaders of the National Rally have struck competing notes on sensitive issues, from pensions and the high-profile departure of a top adviser to a long-standing proposal by Le Pen to ban hijabs.

Once seen as his party’s most likely candidate, the 30-year-old member of the European Parliament had to step aside in early July after a court shortened Le Pen’s sentence for embezzlement of EU funds, allowing her to run.

In positioning himself for a possible campaign, Bardella had tried to soften the National Rally’s image, especially on the economy, in an attempt to appeal to more moderate voters the party will likely need to win next year’s presidential election.

Le Pen is leading the polls in a crowded field, making it likely she will win the first round of the French election and advance to the two-candidate runoff — a feat she has accomplished twice before, only to lose to French President Emmanuel Macron.

Tensions between the two have bubbled just below the surface in the weeks since Le Pen reasserted herself as the party’s presidential standard-bearer.

On the day after the July verdict, Bardella stood stern-faced beside his mentor as she sought to cast their relationship as a partnership, with Le Pen as the candidate for France’s highest office and her protégé as her pick for prime minister, a much less powerful role.

Bardella did not attend a presidential debate last week in which Le Pen doubled down on a campaign promise to roll back a key element of Macron’s pension reform and allow workers to retire at 62.

He had openly questioned that policy earlier this year as part of his campaign to cast himself as a fiscally responsible leader.

As Le Pen outlined her economic agenda at the debate, news broke that François Durvye, one of her key economic advisers and a leading advocate of fiscal discipline, was leaving the campaign.

The former financier left after he had reportedly pushed Bardella to rebel and run instead of Le Pen. He also made clear privately and publicly that he did not feel able to defend the party’s positions on the economy.

Pressed by reporters at a campaign event, Bardella described the departure as Durvye’s “personal decision” — seemingly contradicting Le Pen, who said on the sidelines of the debate that it had been “her wish.”

Tensions were also on display this week after one of Le Pen’s top lieutenants, MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy, said that wearing the hijab in public would become a fineable offense if she took office, a controversial measure rivals say is unconstitutional.

The day after, Bardella appeared to downplay the proposal, saying instead it would be up to French voters to decide via a proposed referendum, which Le Pen later said would include a series of measures that would “fight Islamist ideology.”

National Rally officials have sought to downplay the disagreements between the two leaders.

“There was an internal debate, and the conclusion was the proposed hijab ban,” said Laurent Jacobelli, a member of Parliament and a spokesperson for the National Rally. “It was settled with everyone’s agreement, Jordan included.”

“There was agreement on the ban itself,” Jacobelli added. “What got debated was the how … There were no tensions.”

Alexandre Loubet, a member of Parliament for the National Rally, acknowledged that the party was still discussing the details of some elements of the platform.

“There are still many things that need deciding,” Loubet told POLITICO at an agricultural fair where Bardella was making an appearance Saturday.

Loubet acknowledged the party was still working out the numbers to pay for the cost of rolling back Macron’s reform. Le Pen has promised to present a plan this fall to cut some €125 billion in spending.

Bardella, Loubet said, will be “her first support … in the media, on the field, to broaden the [future] majority.”