Jordan Bardella

It grew into a mouvement over the cost of living.

On the 13th of October, Jordan Bardella, the president of Le Pen's party, and I think he's some sort of relationship partner, Nephews, son-in-law, there's always in these authoritarians, it's always a family business.

It's full of archetypes.

It's like a mafia family.

They also said that they protested against the ban of Islamic garments inside schools in France.

They also said that they wanted to send a message before the 2027 presidential election that is going to happen in France next April.

So many of the protesters at these high schools were not demanding better school conditions, but they also had in their minds, very left wing demands that were not really related to what the high schoolers were demanding.

How quickly has this spread from just a few suburban schools to a nationwide movement? What role did social media and student unions play?

That's basically their main messaging in order to win the French electorate.

They also pointed out the consequences of mass immigration, which the French government, which Macron's government has not done.

Marine Le Pen, who is trying to look presidential, has not spoken about this too much, even though she has mentioned this.

The president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, has said, definitely said that mass immigration and that the descendants of immigrants living in the suburbs are also responsible for this.

Marine Le Pen is under house arrest for misappropriation of public funds.

So she's, she's watching the news with an ankle bracelet on probably now as we speak, but I'll say at the same time, rubbing her hands together because at the moment things couldn't be going better for her precisely because people are talking about what's happening in the streets and not talking about her under house arrest with an ankle bracelet for, misappropriation of public funds um and then the other thing that's happening with the rn is jordan bardella pardon that guy suddenly feel like i'm mispronouncing his name but who who was the front candidate during the more recent um elections

for the which elect is that for president

No, this is, so there was a, this is among Macron's many misdeeds.

And that's when the new Popular Front was formed among the parties of the left who won the election as a political formation, not as a party in and of itself.

But nevertheless, McCollum refused to let them govern.

Jordan Bardella was the person that the RN would have run for prime minister and was spearheading, was sort of the public face of the RN at the time because Marine Le Pen was subsumed in scandals.

There was a moment there when they were thinking about swapping the public face of the organization.

So she could talk to businessmen, like she could talk to farmers or students, like she's really tried to kind of broaden her branding and her appeal.

Jordan Bardella, who has been recently caught up in a storm because one of the French kind of media uncovered some anti-Semitic Things that he said in his youth and that's really caught up with him.

But until recently, he was seen as someone who's actually quite good at talking to French business as he was to students.

And that was a real good thing.

As large protests continue across France, we had the opportunity to sit down with Victor Mallet, a journalist from the Financial Times who is currently living in Paris.

In his new book, Far Right France, Le Pen, Bardella, and the Future of Europe, he discusses the rise of the national rally and the French far right.

During our conversation with Mr. Mallet, we discussed his recent publication, as well as the current French student protests, the rise of the national rally in right-wing politics, and what Europe might look like if Marine Le Pen became president.

Thank you so much, Victor, for joining us today to talk about your book, Far Right France.

Yeah.

Speaking of things that, you know, on first look would probably seem to damage RN's chances.

Last month, Media Part in France published a report showing that claiming that Jordan Bardella, RN's party leader, was engaged in anti-Semitism when he was 17 and just starting out with the party.

Do you think this will have an impact on Marine Le Pen's campaign and national rallies performance at all?

She lost in 2012, 2017, and 2022.

The day before, her party re-elected Jordan Bardella as its president with almost 90, 9% of the vote.

His speech was briefly interrupted by a banner from a Jewish student's union.

Meanwhile, on the streets, the latest round of cost of living protests brought out between 400 and 10,000 and 800,000 people, depending on who counted.