French far-right leader says claims of antisemitism part of ‘total war’ on Le Pen campaign

PARIS — Jordan Bardella, a key ally of French far-right presidential frontrunner Marine Le Pen, on Tuesday said allegations that he made antisemitic comments in 2013 marked part of a “total war” against their party ahead of the 2027 polls.

“We are seeing the beginnings of a total war, an attempt to destabilize the presidential campaign,” National Rally (RN) leader Bardella, flanked by Le Pen, told party deputies.

He denounced what he called a bid to “kill my political career,” with the allegations published by the investigative website Mediapart, which he has denied.

Mediapart’s investigation is built on comments in private chats allegedly written by Bardella in the summer of 2013 when he was 17 or 18 years old. Mediapart maintains it authenticated the comments. It did not specify where the messages had been written nor did it publish screenshots.

According to the report by Mediapart, Bardella wrote, among other comments, in a chat: “The Jew has to dominate other peoples, crush them, and rob them; a Zionist is necessarily a Jew, and fundamentally so.”

Le Pen said she had “total confidence” in Bardella, 31, who has risen rapidly through the party ranks over the past decade and is tipped to become prime minister if she wins the presidency, and vowed the RN would “counterattack” over the allegations.

She warned “our opponents will do absolutely anything — including the most disgusting things — to try to derail this momentum” ahead of the 2027 election for a successor to centrist President Emmanuel Macron.

A poll published Monday suggested that Le Pen would easily lead the first round of voting in the elections next year, and would defeat any challenger in the second-round runoff to win the Elysee.

“Now, I think it’s Mediapart that needs to be told to put on its Kevlar vest, because there will obviously be a response to the way they are behaving,” she said.

Bardella, a savvy user of social media who projects a clean-cut image, has been a key player in Le Pen’s project of “de-demonization” to make the RN into an electable force.

Both have moved to rid the RN of the legacy of her father Jean-Marie Le Pen who founded and led its predecessor party, the National Front (FN), and repeatedly made antisemitic remarks.

Bardella made an unprecedented visit to Israel in 2025, the first by a French far-right leader, in a bid to demonstrate the RN’s new credentials.

During that visit, Bardella addressed an Israeli government conference on combating antisemitism in Jerusalem, where he said France and Israel should “join forces” against antisemitism and acknowledged the symbolic significance of his invitation and his party’s historical responsibility. His participation was controversial: several prominent invitees withdrew from the conference over the inclusion of Bardella and other European far-right politicians.

The RN has also sought to build ties with foreign governments ahead of the 2027 presidential election. In May, Le Pen and Bardella held meetings with the Israeli and German ambassadors in France as the party sought to shed its longstanding reputation for antisemitism and expand its international contacts.

Le Pen has long sought to make the party she inherited from her father more palatable, including by distancing it from the antisemitic legacy of a man convicted for Holocaust denial.

Critics, however, said the latest controversy showed that the movement had not fundamentally changed since the era of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who reached the runoff of the 2002 presidential election.

“The far right will always remain the far right,” said center-left presidential contender Raphael Glucksmann, who is due to take part next month in a primary organized by the Socialists.

“No PR agency, no facelift will change that. Let us never forget that they all joined a party founded by fanatical antisemites and avowed racists,” he added.