France’s far-right this weekend selected a party leader from outside the Le Pen dynasty for the first time in its 50-year history — the latest sign of the movement’s bid to convince voters it has swapped extremism for professionalism.
Before a cheering auditorium, Marine Le Pen announced on Saturday evening that her protégé Jordan Bardella, a 27-year-old member of the European parliament, had won the vote to succeed her at the helm of the Rassemblement National (National Rally). “I will pass on a re-founded and revitalised party . . . that is proving every day that it is a real party of government, the party that will govern tomorrow,” the 54-year-old said. “We must be ready!”
The succession will not alter the power dynamics — Le Pen remains the RN’s uncontested boss. Bardella, in a relationship with her niece, is almost family. Nor is Le Pen’s long-held strategy of detoxifying the RN’s image and courting new voters by focusing on the cost of living crisis gripping Europe expected to change.