Jordan Bardella is the president of the National Rally (RN), France's hard-right party. Aged 30, he is France's most popular politician. He grew up in social housing in a rough neighbourhood north of Paris; his parents are of Italian origin. He joined the party as a teenager, dropped out of university to become a full-time RN hack, and was elected party leader in 2022, having been hand-picked by Marine Le Pen. He has only ever worked in politics. He has 2.3m followers on TikTok, where he posts clips of himself eating Haribo sweets, working out and sets reels to Brazilian funk tracks. His liaison with an Italian princess was splashed across the pages of Paris Match in early 2026.
Bardella is the overwhelming favourite to win the first round of the presidential election due in 2027. A poll gives him 35%, over twice the 15.5% of his nearest rival, Edouard Philippe, a former centrist prime minister. He is the RN's pick to become prime minister should Emmanuel Macron hold snap legislative elections. If an appeals court next year confirms a ban on Le Pen from running for elected office (over a European Parliament party-financing offence), the pair have agreed that he will be the RN presidential candidate.
Like Le Pen, Bardella has sought to distance the party from its roots in xenophobia, antisemitism and the snarling indignation practised by Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie. He cancelled an appearance at a conservative event near Washington, DC, after Steve Bannon made a Nazi-like salute. He visited Israel, including Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial. Having cut the RN's ties to the Alternative for Germany, he speaks warmly of Giorgia Meloni, who embodies a more moderate version of the populist right.
Bardella promises €100bn ($115bn) of budget savings over five years, "pro-growth taxation" and a simplification of rules that weigh down firms. He describes himself as "pragmatic on economics": "If we don't create wealth, we won't be able to deal with the wall of debt." He dismisses the left's tax plans as a recipe for "Venezuela without the oil." The value of work runs through his new book, a best-seller second only to the latest Astérix. The RN supports a wealth tax. Not all French bosses are convinced: one says he found Bardella "very smart"; another is deeply sceptical of the budget-cut pledge.
He has been courting the French business establishment, appearing at MEDEF (the employers' federation) events and holding quiet meetings with top business bosses. He urged France to learn to love those "who create, who innovate, who take risks." Sébastien Chenu, an RN deputy from the centre-right, acts as the party's chief intermediary with business.
Bardella says he is "not in favour of leaving the EU" but for "a Europe of nations." He wants to put "national priority"—the primacy of French law over European law—in migration policy to a referendum, without submitting it to parliament; this would in effect breach European treaties and require a constitutional change. He wants preference in public orders for French firms manufacturing at home. He would pull France out of the EU electricity-pricing scheme so it can benefit from its cheaper nuclear power. He wants a rebate on France's rising EU budget payments. He declares "the EU is an association in defence of Germany's interests."
He says Europe "should stop regulating the noise of lawnmowers, and focus on major projects for the future that are vital for European civilisation: AI, digital technology, space, data…But it should leave it to us to tell our farmers what products they can use." He calls France's contribution to defending NATO's eastern flank against the Russian threat "fundamental."
More controversially, Bardella wants to raise with the European Central Bank the idea of quantitative easing to manage French debt, which currently amounts to nearly 116% of GDP. He breezily reckons that, accompanied by a credible five-year growth plan, this could be in the common interest: "If the French economy cracks, the whole euro zone will crack."
Bardella insists that the "European people" fear "disappearing" under pressure from "migratory waves." Supporters chant "This is our home" at RN rallies. He claims to have no political role model. He likes the way that Donald Trump "defends his country's interests" but adds that "he does it in a very American style that is not European and even less French." His blend of anti-immigrant, tech-focused, green-sceptic nationalism is nonetheless Trumpian.
America should be a "partner, not a big brother," he says. When tested in November 2025 against four potential second-round rivals, Bardella was the polls' favourite to win the next presidential election. After the March 2026 mayoral elections, an opinion poll found 45% of respondents thinking Edouard Philippe would make a "good candidate" for the presidency, putting him in a near dead heat with Bardella.
Too much of everything is just enough.