The proposed formula was the classic American “ticket”. An electoral tandem that had to cover an ideological spectrum greater than that of the candidate herself, very limited to the classic voter of the National Regrouping (RN). Marine Le Pen, president, and Jordan Bardella, prime minister: two ways of seeing the extreme right. That of the second, closer to the establishment, to economic power, to a certain moderation or calculation in certain attacks on immigration policy. The first, more social, radical, anti-European and confronted with Islam. But on July 7, at the Paris appeal court, a crack was heard in the relationship. And the political income is not being as harmonious as could be expected.
Bardella, frustrated at not having finally been the candidate for the Elysee Palace when Le Pen decided to run despite having been convicted on appeal for embezzlement of funds last July, has already twisted his gesture several times these weeks. But the last few days have shown several frictions and a certain personal distance. It is difficult to see them together at events. Not even he accompanied her to the presidential debate with six other candidates organized by the business association in Roland-Garros. Despite the fact that it is the world with which the young Bardella best tunes. Or maybe because of that.
The businessmen do not fully trust the leader of the party, whom they still find very radical, and they see in the young dolphin—he came to have better estimates than her in the polls—someone closer. Discrepancies have been evident on issues such as interventionism in State matters, budgetary obligations with the EU, tax justice or pension reform (Le Pen wants to lower the retirement age again and Bardella even suggested eliminating a certain age). But also in the prohibition of Muslim women from wearing the scarf that covers their hair, an old controversy that has been planning the French panorama in a sterile and electoral way for decades. It's not all.
Bardella's entourage also offered a different version than that of her mentor about the circumstances of the sudden and violent departure of her main advisor, François Durvye (she met just when Le Pen was taking the stage at Roland-Garros). A man who, precisely, forged Bardella's approach to the business world and who, according to Libération, would have advised him to also run for office after Marine Le Pen's decision to move forward after the appeal court's conviction. “Go out and say you're showing up,” I would have suggested. A challenge to her mentor that was never carried out.
The suggestion, however, reached the leader's ears quickly and, according to the same media, motivated the decision to cut off his head and exclude him from the campaign. “François has made a personal decision and we respect it,” Le Pen's number two slipped. And here the two clans, according to the story of some close people, became even more separated.
Bardella felt like a candidate for eight months, the entire time in which Le Pen was very close to political disqualification. And now he gives the impression of not wanting to go back to being the secondary one he was before 2022. The day after Le Pen's decision to continue in the race towards the Elysée, his face showed unbearable tension. "It is natural that each of us has our own character; sometimes we have sensitivities, words or formulations that may differ," he claimed once again during a televised interview, on Saturday, August 29, at the Châlons-en-Champagne fair, where he celebrated the staging of his beginning of the political course.
More cracks opened publicly last Sunday, although the hidden frictions had been going on for some time. It happened after the intervention of Jean-Philippe Tanguy, RN deputy and Le Pen's right-hand man in the National Assembly, in a television program. The head of the party's Economy then assured that the RN intended to "combat Islamist ideology" and "sanction the use of the veil, also in solidarity with all the women in the world who are forced to wear it and who die to have that freedom."
The proposal was not clear. But then he insisted: “If there are women who wear the veil when it is prohibited, they will receive a fine.” And he added that the proposal defended by the RN – especially the wing closest to Marine Le Pen – “has the support of 60% to 70% of the French.” Bardella, like other elected officials, considered at the time that this could represent an electoral handicap. “I don't see it,” he explained during a pre-campaign seminar held in April. “Bardella has a more pragmatic conception of politics and this measure could be very damaging in the campaign,” a party leader tells EL PAÍS.
The idea is not at all new within Marine Le Pen's program. He has been proposing it since 2012 and it always gives the impression of being a smokescreen to cover up other weaknesses of the party in the face of its most radical electorate. But this time it provoked a wave of contrary reactions from the RN candidate's opponents, from Jean-Luc Mélenchon to Bruno Retailleau, not at all suspected of any lukewarmness against Islam and immigration. The matter took a complicated turn when several RN leaders, such as Andréa Kotarac, qualified the announcement the next day and stated that in reality there would be “no immediate fines for veiled women the day after the elections.”
Jordan Bardella himself entered the debate. "This is not about establishing a clothing police. First of all, it will be the French who will decide whether or not they want a measure of this type through a referendum," he added. Marine Le Pen's hypothetical prime minister then took up the party's proposal: organize a referendum containing several measures against “the Islamist ideology” during the five-year period, after the referendum on immigration that the RN wants to organize at the same time as the legislative elections, if it came to power. In other words, a full-fledged politician, we'll see.
Marine Le Pen then tried to settle the debate on the social network X. Although the fire had already occurred. “I will submit to the French through a referendum a major law to combat Islamist ideologies, with numerous forceful measures, including the criminalization of the Islamist veil in public spaces,” he stated.
