Rassemblement National: Bardella becomes party leader of the right-wing nationalists

Change of leadership at the Rassemblement National: The new chairman and successor to Marine Le Pen is Jordan Bardella. Le Pen wants to focus on her role as faction leader.

Jordan Bardella has been elected to succeed Marine Le Pen at the head of the right-wing nationalist Rassemblement National party. The 27-year-old member of the European Parliament received 85 percent of the vote in an internal party vote, as announced at a party conference of the RN in Paris. He is the first leader of the RN not to go by the name of Le Pen since the party was founded more than half a century ago.

Bardella has been interim chairman of the RN since Le Pen ran for the presidency last year. He prevailed against his competitor Louis Aliot, the 53-year-old mayor of Perpignan and longtime party official. Aliot, le Pen’s former partner, received 15 percent of the vote. But Bardella is also part of the clan. He has been in a relationship with one of Jean-Marine Le Pen’s granddaughters for several years. In the event of marriage, Marine Le Pen would become his aunt by marriage.

Marine Le Pen: Focus on faction leadership

Marine Le Pen has announced that she wants to focus on her role as leader of the RN faction in the National Assembly. She was expected to continue wielding much power in the party leadership. Because after an extremely successful election year in which it grew to become the largest opposition party in the National Assembly, the party wants more.

She is likely to want more influence in the regions and the Élysée Palace – specifically the regional elections in 2026 and the presidential election in 2027. Even if the 54-year-old Le Pen achieved record results for her party this year, it is not yet clear whether the learned lawyer will make her fourth attempt at the highest state office in 2027. Following this year’s elections, instead of returning to the party leadership, she decided to chair the parliamentary group in the House of Commons, which had grown enormously.

Steady career

The new party leader has had a steep career in the party. Bardella, who was born near Paris, is considered a staunch right-wing nationalist. At 16 he joined what was then known as the Front National.

Bardella has made it to the top of the party in a very short time. From party spokesman and head of the youth organization to leader of the list for the European elections, he climbed to the post of party vice president and eventually became interim president.

The big challenge for Bardella will now be to anchor RN more firmly in the province. The party is still plagued by a lack of staff and a lack of local roots. In the parliamentary elections this year, the right-wing nationalists nevertheless managed to increase the number of their seats in the lower house tenfold. They now form the largest opposition faction. Lead candidate Le Pen gave RN a historically good result of 41.45 percent of the vote in the presidential election.