The nice guy next door and Marine Le Pen’s nephew

He takes conscientious care of his image as a good guy, impeccably dressed, who never brushes his hair. He barely smiles, as if trying to look even more formal. The few times he does so for the camera — in a selfie with a follower at a rally — his youthfulness can be seen in his demeanor. At 28, Jordan Berdella (Drancy, 1995), the smartest kid in his class Of banlieue (outskirts of Paris), is a self-made politician, far removed from the elite of French politics.

He is a representative of the “new extreme right”, heads the list of the French extreme right party National Regroupment and is the favorite in the European elections this Sunday. According to surveys, his voting intention is twice that of the other two main candidates. Some media call him the “TikTok candidate”, a network in which he has more than one million followers. He takes selfies with his fans and looks like a certain rock star, Especially in front of the party’s youth, who find him closer than leader Marine Le Pen. In fact, he is much more popular than her and some do not rule out that he could one day aspire to take over the Elysee.

Ghost MEP

Jordan Bardella is one of the most unique figures on the political front in the country. Like Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, his career has been precarious, although the two are at opposite ends: Attal, a product of the elite; Bardella, the boy next door. Le Monde I published it a few months ago Bardella is writing an autobiography, A story from his years.

They began 28 years ago in the popular neighbourhood of Drancy in Seine-Saint Denis. The only child of divorced parents, Bardella grew up here restrictions, As the neighborhood on the periphery of Paris is called. His family is of immigrant origin: three of his four grandparents are Italian, although he grew up in this area full of public housing, Where Muslims are in majority and almost half the population is French Second or third generation.

This, and his origins, have not prevented him from firmly and unquestionably defending the party’s main axis, Such as anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam discourse. Despite the fact that he got 33% of the vote in polls on Sunday, he is not at all a convinced pro-European. There is not much of an outbreak even in the peripheral areas of Paris. He has always said that, because he grew up in this area, he knows which problems to solve.

He is a party man. He studied geography at the Sorbonne, but abandoned his studies to devote himself to politics. At the age of 16 he joined the National Front party, when Marine Le Pen was already in charge. She has always said that she has great admiration for him and that she enrolled in the training because of him. In the 2017 elections, which Emmanuel Macron won, she joined Le Pen’s electoral campaign. He was appointed Member of the European Parliament since 2019, although he is called a “ghost MEP” due to his absence rate: he has hardly submitted amendments and his political activity is much lower than the rest of the candidates.

Elected president of the party in 2022, he is the right hand of Marine Le Pen, with whom he appears on European campaign posters. He is even more popular than her. The two form a kind of binomial similar to Emmanuel Macron-Gabriel Attal. Bardella represents above all the image of the new extreme right: he does not have the burden of the surname Le Pen and the current leader of the formation He has relied on his youth to establish his process of dediabolization, or the normalization of their political discourse.

Very discreet about his private life, he dates Nolwenn Olivier, the niece of Marine Le Pen, the granddaughter of party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen. However, they have rarely been seen together in front of the camera and he hardly publishes photos with her on the networks. His European campaign has been irregular, but according to polls he has a 33% voting intention, almost twice as much as the Renacimiento candidate, Macron’s party, with 16% support.