France’s center-right Republicans party leader Eric Ciotti has endorsed an alliance with the far-right National Rally, cementing the prominence of its 28-year-old president, Jordan Bardella — who is expected to lead the far right to its strongest ever performance in legislative elections later this month.
Bardella is being widely hailed for the National Rally’s triumph in last week’s European elections, where it won about 31.4 percent of the vote, more than double the share of the vote won by French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance Party coalition. Ciotti’s Republicans received 7.25 percent of the votes.
The results pushed Macron to dissolve the country’s Parliament and announce snap polls, calling it an “act of trust” in French people to defend liberalism.
Ciotti’s backing of an alliance with the National Rally sparked an outcry from many members of his own party, for whom working with the far right has long been taboo.
French President Emmanuel Macron called for a surprise early election, after far-right parties surged in the European Parliament elections on June 9. (Video: Naomi Schanen/The Washington Post)
Born in 1995 to a family with Italian roots, Bardella was raised in the disadvantaged northern suburbs of Paris. He joined the National Rally (then known as National Front) at the age of 16 when Marine Le Pen, doyenne of the French nationalist and Eurosceptic politics, was taking over the party from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Bardella would go on to work on Marine Le Pen’s presidential campaign in 2017. Five years later, he was elected as the first person to lead the party outside of the Le Pen family.
Bardella has built a following among young voters, including a large follower base of 1.6 million on TikTok. Hundreds of his followers replied to his appeal to vote in the weekend’s E.U. elections, with many asserting baselessly that if he were to lose, it would mean the elections were rigged.
GET CAUGHT UP
Summarized stories to quickly stay informed
While his critics see Bardella as a puppet for Le Pen, his fans point to his rise from working-class origins to the top echelons of French politics as a matter of inspiration.
Pierre-Stéphane Fort, an investigative journalist and the author of a new book on Bardella, previously told The Washington Post that Le Pen, a middle-aged heiress, saw the value in Bardella’s origin story and modeled him into a marketable, social-media-savvy surrogate who could reach new voters.
What is National Rally and its platform?
The far-right anti-immigration and nationalist party was founded in 1972 and was led by Jean-Marie Le Pen until 2011. Le Pen is a convicted Holocaust denier and has been fined thousands of euros by courts for his repeated comments trivializing the systematic extermination of Jews in World War II.
For the next decade, the party was led by his daughter Marine Le Pen, who attempted to move the party away from its antisemitic image. In 2015, the party expelled Jean-Marie Le Pen following an interview in which he described Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of history.”
Marine Le Pen renamed National Front as “Rassemblement National,” or National Rally, in 2018. Critics were quick to point out that the name was similar to that of the Popular National Rally, a political group that collaborated with France’s pro-Nazi government during World War II.
Under her leadership, the party came closest to the presidency when she faced off against Macron in 2017 and 2022. She lost both times.
While the National Rally trounced other parties at this month’s European elections, it is not clear how much of their gains will translate in a national election.
A number of French polls have suggested the National Rally could get support from about one-third of voters in the first round of voting in June, but it is unclear if they would win enough seats to get a majority.
What did Ciotti say about an alliance with National Rally?
On Tuesday, Ciotti added to the growing political turmoil in France by backing “an alliance of the right” between his Republicans party and the National Rally. “I want my political family to move in this direction. Many follow me,” Ciotti told television station TF1.
Ciotti said the parties share similar positions on issues such as immigration, and called for an end to the “fictitious opposition” to working with the far right. “We are no longer in the aftermath of World War II,” he said.
Bardella confirmed his party’s alliance with the Republicans and wrote on X that by joining forces, the parties could “restore authority and order” in France.
The Republicans have experienced a sharp decline in political support in France, and Ciotti has probably calculated that his party could have more of an impact by aligning itself with the rising far right. The alliance could also benefit the National Rally, by boosting its chances of securing a majority of seats in the National Assembly.
However, Ciotti’s statement caused an “explosion” within the party, French newspaper Le Monde reported, adding that it was the first time a conservative leader had proposed teaming up with the far right. Several prominent politicians from his party called on him to resign, and others announced their own resignation in protest.
What would a center-right alliance with the far right mean for France?
Under the terms of their alliance, the National Rally will support “several dozen” candidates from the Republicans, Bardella told France 2. The Republicans will then be allied with the National Rally in the assembly.
This is important because when constituting a government, Macron will need to choose a prime minister who can command the support of a majority of the National Assembly to pass legislation.
If the National Rally and its allies win a majority of seats in the legislative elections, Bardella will probably be named prime minister, forcing what’s known as a cohabitation government, with Macron as president for the remainder of his term until 2027 and Bardella as prime minister. In fact, the National Rally has already started campaigning on the idea that a vote for the National Rally in the legislative elections will lead to Bardella as head of the government.
A majority of seats in the National Assembly and its party leader as prime minister would give the National Rally more power than it has had before to push its ideas into the political mainstream and to prevent Macron from enacting his agenda.
Emily Rauhala and Virgile Demoustier contributed reporting.