PARIS, June 28, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Jordan Bardella, the media-savvy 28-year-
old leader of France's far-right National Rally, has helped rejuvenate the
image of a party long tainted by racism and anti-Semitism, putting it on
course to take power for the first time ever.

On his watch, the National Rally (RN) of three-time former presidential
candidate Marine Le Pen, has gone from strength to strength, achieving record
scores in this month's European election.

A social media star with impeccable tailoring and remarkable poise for his
years, Bardella hopes to repeat that feat in two-round snap parliamentary
elections called by President Emmanuel Macron in response to his drubbing in
the European vote.

Polls show the RN, which has promised to boost purchasing power, drastically
curtail immigration and restore law and order, winning the election but not
certain of winning an outright majority.

Bardella has said he will refuse to become premier if he does not have the
support of 289 out of the National Assembly's 577 members.

"Be free, be French and remember, when the people vote, the people win," the
uber-confident RN leader declared in a TikTok campaign video, sitting behind
a desk in a suit, in the pose of a man ready to govern.

- Groomed by Le Pen -

The man credited with sweeping away the last psychological barriers to voting
far-right for many French people joined what was then the National Front at
the age of 16.

His meteoric rise began in 2019 when the RN's longtime leader Le Pen put him
in charge of the party's European election campaign at the age of 23.

The RN won the vote in France, a triumph by Bardella, who succeeded Le Pen as
head of the party three years later, the first person from outside the Le Pen
family dynasty to hold the post.

The party had been founded as the National Front (FN) by her father Jean-
Marie Le Pen.

"I owe an enormous amount to Marine Le Pen," Bardella acknowledged recently.

Having a leader unburdened by the most notorious surname in French politics
has helped the party grow its vote among pensioners, young people and
university graduates, who were reluctant previously to support the anti-
immigration party.

In a country where most politicians come from money and privilege his story
of being raised by a single mother in a drab tower block in the crime-
blighted Seine-Saint-Denis area northeast of Paris also struck a chord with
many voters.

"He knows the real world. He's close to us," Tom Maiani, a 24-year-old RN
party campaigner in the northeastern Lorraine region told AFP.

From an early age, however, Bardella's parents put him on a separate track,
enrolling him in a private school.

He went on to study briefly at the prestigious Sorbonne University before
dropping out to focus on a political career.

The son of an Italian-born mother and a father with both Italian and Algerian
roots, he has presented himself as a symbol of successful integration, which
he contrasts with successive waves of immigration from north Africa.

Growing up surrounded by immigrants in Seine-Saint-Denis, "I saw what France
will become in a few years if we do not take back control now," he said at a
rally in 2022, denouncing the "pain of becoming a stranger in your own
country."

- 'Empty shell' -

A polished public speaker and keen debater, Bardella remains cool under
pressure, betraying no emotion when attacked by rivals.

His rise has not been entirely free of controversy.

A France 2 documentary alleged in January that he used an anonymous Twitter
account to share racist messages when he was a local elected official, claims
he has denied.

One 2017 post from the "RepNat du Gaito" account includes an obscene image
mocking Theo Luhaka, a young black man who suffered severe anal injuries from
a police baton that year, France 2 said.

His critics also accuse him of spending too much time honing his public image
and not enough time studying the issues.

His former media trainer Pascal Humeau described him in a France 2 television
documentary last year as an "empty shell" in the beginning, devoid of
ideology, but who proved to be a quick learner.

Leftist European lawmaker Manon Aubry described him as a "ghost
parliamentarian" over his five years as a member of the European Parliament
between 2019 and 2024 for regularly failing to show up.

Becoming France's youngest ever prime minister, in a tense "cohabitation"
with President Emmanuel Macron, could prove to be a poisoned chalice for the
ambitious Bardella.

Apart from the late centre-right leader Jacques Chirac, no French premier has
gone on to become president in the past half a century.

It is Le Pen, who was runner-up in the last two presidential elections and
who has remained party leader in parliament, who is largely expected to bid
for the top job when Macron's second term ends in 2027.

There have been rumblings, however, within the RN that her protege could make
a better candidate.