The National Rally (RN) persists and signs in its defense of Jordan Bardella, to whom Mediapart attributes anti-Semitic remarks dating from 2013. Thursday October 1, several elected officials of the RN also supported their president, who again described the new elements provided by Mediapart as "pseudo-evidence" and "crude fabrications". A media that Marine Le Pen considers “militant”, while denouncing “barbouzerie”. Franceinfo summarizes the different lines of defense of the far-right party.
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He denounces “false” documents
Since Monday and the publication of the Mediapart investigation, Jordan Bardella has denounced “gross falsehoods”. He said it on Monday, said it again on Tuesday alongside Marine Le Pen in the National Assembly and repeated it on Thursday after the latest evidence provided by Mediapart. “The pseudo-evidence from Mediapart has finally come out: crude montages, obscure screenshots that can be manipulated, repeating vile comments that I obviously never made,” the party president wrote on X, whose comments were echoed by several elected officials from his camp.
The RN's line of defense, which consists of denying the anti-Semitic remarks attributed to Jordan Bardella, is shared by all of the party's parliamentarians. “My conviction is unshakeable. Jordan Bardella has never made these remarks and I have the deep conviction of it,” declared Tuesday on franceinfo the deputy and spokesperson for the RN Laurent Jacobelli. Friday, the elected official mentioned possible identity theft: "Indeed, accounts exchanged messages. Was there Jordan Bardella in the end? No proof." For Sébastien Chenu, interviewed by BFMTV on Thursday, "there is no link between these comments [revealed by Mediapart] and an account given by Jordan Bardella".
He accuses Mediapart of being a “militant” newspaper
Criticism of Mediapart's work often comes up in the arguments of RN executives. For Laurent Jacobelli, this investigation does not constitute “journalist work”, but rather “activist work”. A line of defense shared by several parliamentarians, including Marine Le Pen. On Tuesday, the RN presidential candidate questioned the impartiality of Mediapart, described as an “militant, far-left” media outlet. His words were accompanied by a threat, suggesting to the media to "put on your Kevlar suit", the material from which bulletproof vests are made.
She also affirmed that she gave no credit to a media outlet whose co-founder, Edwy Plenel, had provided "support for [the] Islamist terrorists who assassinated the eleven Israeli athletes" during the Munich Olympics in 1972. A reference to a writing, that same year, by the journalist who had defended the terrorists of the Palestinian organization Black September, before later rejecting this position. Jordan Bardella, like other elected officials, also mentioned this writing.
Several members of the party also mentioned the five convictions (out of around 350 procedures according to the media) of Mediapart in its history, which the latter defends on its site by explaining that they do not concern an "investigation into a political official, nor a revealed affair" but rather procedures such as "a right of reply published late".
He says he is the victim of “barbouzerie”
Tuesday, Marine Le Pen denounced a "barbouzerie" and promised that the RN was not going to "let it go" in the face of what she describes as "manipulation". “Either Mediapart staged this manipulation, or Mediapart itself was hoodwinked by fairly powerful people behind it who have an interest in destabilizing this presidential campaign,” summarizes Jordan Bardella.
The president of the RN believes that this investigation is intended to “assassinate him politically” and that the “operation was most certainly prepared in the scenario where [he] was a candidate for the presidential election”. He also denounced "the beginnings of a total war" against his party, a few months before the election. “If these attacks are taking place at this time, it is because Marine Le Pen is on the verge of becoming President of the Republic,” declared Eric Ciotti, president of the UDR, an ally of the RN. For Jean-Philippe Tanguy, one of Marine Le Pen's main lieutenants, the Mediapart revelations come from the "anti-Semitic scum who were purged" from the party in the early 2010s.
