Will bromance bloom between Trump and Jordan Bardella?

Life has never been so good for Jordan Bardella, the 30-year-old president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. A recent opinion poll had him as the runaway favorite to win the 2027 presidential election. One man who believes in his credentials is the former president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. Now out of prison and promoting the book he wrote during his 20-day incarceration, the center-right Sarkozy said that Bardella reminds him of a young Jacques Chirac.

Despite Sarkozy’s conviction for criminal conspiracy, he retains a large and loyal fanbase among the metropolitan Boomer bourgeois, a demographic that the National Rally has traditionally struggled to attract.

Bardella has also been broadening his horizons with a visit to London last week where he lunched with Reform party leader Nigel Farage and spoke to the BBC. Among the topics of conversation was Donald Trump, and Bardella said that he agreed “for the most part” with the president’s bleak outlook for Europe.

Bardella had another opportunity to work on his English (he’s been taking intensive lessons this year) when he and Le Pen were invited last Friday to the American embassy in Paris. “I appreciated the chance to learn about the National Rally’s economic and social agenda and their views on what lies ahead for France,” tweeted ambassador Charles Kushner, above a photo of him standing next to Le Pen and Bardella.

The French left weren’t happy. Manon Aubry, a prominent member of Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise, accused the National Rally of “servilely rushing to destabilize their own country for the benefit of Trump’s doctrine of interference.”

The French edition of the Huff Post articulated the fears of many on the left that the 2027 presidential election “will be subject to foreign interference and pressure.”

The Huff Post wasn’t as vexed about “foreign interference” in 2017 when former president Barack Obama endorsed Emmanuel Macron’s presidential campaign. The same goes for Macron. He said he was “delighted” to receive Obama’s support on the eve of the second round run-off against Marine Le Pen. On the other hand, when Elon Musk took an interest in European politics earlier this year, Macron told him to butt out, saying “this is not the way things should be between democracies and allies.”

Bardella has also undergone a volte-face when it comes to America. His frosty response to Trump’s election victory was to warn that it should be “a wake-up call…to the French and Europeans.”

Eric Zemmour, on the other hand, leader of the right-wing Reconquest Party, couldn’t conceal his glee. “I wish all the best to the Americans who have chosen civilization over wokeism, decline and the deconstruction of their identity,” was how he reacted to Trump’s second term.

That explains why Zemmour was invited to Trump’s inauguration and Bardella was not.

Bardella further blotted his copybook in February when he fled the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. Steve Bannon had been accused by the liberal press of making a Nazi salute and Bardella didn’t want to be tainted by association. Bannon accused him of being “a boy, not a man.”

Bardella may have been obeying orders when he flew home from Washington. Le Pen was awaiting the verdict on whether she had misused EU funds and she wanted to avoid the merest hint of scandal. Fat lot of good that it did her. She was found guilty the following month and disqualified for five years.

Since that verdict, Bardella has grown in confidence and influence, emerging from the shadow of Le Pen to become the de facto leader of the National Rally. Even if Le Pen is reinstated when her appeal is heard in February, many within the party regard Bardella as the stronger candidate for the 2027 election.

He is more economically liberal than the statist Le Pen, and in recent months he has been courting France’s business leaders. He is also more attuned to the civilizational issue. Le Pen has always been tepid on this question. In 2016 she angered many of her voters when she said she believed Islam was “compatible” with French values. One of Macron’s ministers, Gerald Darmanin, subsequently mocked her in a debate for her “soft” attitude towards Islamism.

Bardella grew up in Seine-Saint-Denis, the impoverished department north of Paris with the greatest number of Muslims in France. He is acutely aware of how mass immigration is transforming the Republic. In the past he has warned that immigration “poses a threat to our society… it profoundly destabilizes the fundamental balances of our nations.”

Le Pen is also much more of an isolationist than Bardella. She recently reiterated her opposition to the idea of a right-wing union in France, and her attempts to forge any conservative coalitions within Europe have been half-hearted.

Bardella is more open-minded, as he demonstrated during his trip to London to form with Farage what the French press call “a patriotic alliance.”

The mainstream media have also noted Bardella’s overtures towards America. France’s public radio broadcaster ran an editorial on Friday entitled “Bardella and Trump: Same Combat.” It was predictable in its tone, claiming that the pair share “the conspiracy theory fantasy of the ‘great replacement.’”

Le Pen famously went to New York in January 2017 and hung around Trump Tower in the hope of bumping into the president-elect. She didn’t, and the French press made much of her embarrassment.

Bardella may have more luck in meeting The Donald if he heads Stateside between now and the 2027 election.