Bardella opens off-record press and foreign-capital circuit ahead of July 7 Paris appeals ruling on Le Pen's eligibility
Jordan Bardella has begun preparing to take over as the Rassemblement National's 2027 presidential candidate ahead of the July 7 Paris appeals court ruling in the FN European Parliament assistants case, which could bar Marine Le Pen from the contest, France Info reported. The 30-year-old party president is now holding off-record meetings with journalists, appearing alone at international summits, granting an interview to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung this week, and meeting ambassadors in Paris. RN officials say a foreign trip in the coming weeks is under consideration to harden his international stature before the verdict lands.
Jordan Bardella has begun overtly positioning himself to take over as the Rassemblement National's 2027 presidential candidate ahead of the July 7 Paris appeals court ruling in the case of the FN's European Parliament assistants, France Info reported. The verdict will determine whether Marine Le Pen remains eligible to stand and, RN insiders say, marks the de facto start of the party's presidential campaign.
The shift is most visible in Bardella's handling of the press. The 30-year-old party president, who in recent months had been criticised by journalists for being inaccessible, has resumed the practice of small off-the-record briefings — what French politics calls "le off" — after the issue was raised at the first major working meeting on the presidential election a month ago between him and Le Pen. One RN deputy close to Le Pen had voiced concern earlier in the spring that limiting access to Bolloré-group outlets risked branding Bardella as "the billionaire's candidate."
His international posture has also been recalibrated. Foreign policy was long Marine Le Pen's exclusive RN brief, but Bardella now routinely attends international summits alone and gives interviews to foreign newspapers, the most recent being a Tuesday piece in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in which he set out his foreign-policy outlook. He has also met several ambassadors in Paris in recent weeks, and an overseas trip is reportedly being prepared for the coming weeks to consolidate his stature before the Paris court rules.
The push follows a sustained run of preparation: Bardella told the party in mid-May that he would remain RN president even if he runs in 2027, and travelled to Germany earlier in the month to seek common ground with Berlin on migration and trade, signalling that the succession scenario is being treated less as a contingency and more as the working assumption inside the RN's leadership.