It is time to take seriously the possibility that the next president of France will be Jordan Bardella. His star power was persuasively demonstrated at Thursday’s May Day rally of the Rassemblement National (RN) in Narbonne, the heartland of the French right.
It was part political rally, part disco. The demographic was startling. The party stalwarts, aging boomers who have been voting for Le Pens for forty years, were heavily outnumbered by young people, dancing in front of the stage, waving tricolours.
The French political establishment has long portrayed the RN as extremist, but Bardella threatens that characterisation
Marine Le Pen, 56, spoke first and was rapturously applauded by her party faithful. But her delivery was flat. She seemed exhausted. She is resilient, having run for president three times already, but she has lost every time. While she insists that she is still in the game, she may have hit the buffers.
Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old president of the RN, followed.
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