Le Pen or Bardella? Court to Decide Who Can Run for President

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(Bloomberg) — The outcome of Marine Le Pen’s appeal of her conviction for embezzling public funds could shape French and European politics for years. 

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The decision due today from the three-judge appellate panel will determine not only whether the 57-year-old three-time presidential candidate gets another shot at the Élysée, but whether Jordan Bardella, her 30-year-old protégé, becomes the National Rally’s face in what polls suggest could be the far-right party’s best opportunity yet to win power.

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The Gen Xer insists she remains the candidate but is prepared to cede to the millennial: “If I am convicted in July and cannot stand for election, I will campaign on behalf of Jordan Bardella,” she told France Culture radio last month.

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Le Pen was sentenced in March to a five-year election ban and a two-year jail term that’s on hold while she appeals. She was accused of misusing about €474,000 ($540,000) between 2009 and 2016, when she was a member of the European Parliament, to hire aides and encouraging lawmakers from her party to divert millions more euros to fund activities related to their domestic agenda.

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While the two right-wing politicians share the same platform, their pedigree and priorities set them apart. Le Pen has spent more than two decades dragging the party long identified with her father’s Holocaust-denialism and racism toward more respectable populism. Bardella, who emerged with the political wind at his back, plays the same anti-immigration card as his mentor but adorns it with more pro-business messaging.

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A market-friendly Bardella could increase the National Rally’s appeal to the conservative mainstream, particularly among wealthier retirees who have long been reluctant to embrace Le Pen. The challenge is to broaden the base without sending traditional supporters into the camp of other anti-establishment provocateurs.

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Le Pen’s experience makes her a more formidable opponent than Bardella, who can come across as awkward outside carefully scripted settings. Asked on television last December what question he would ask former president Nicolas Sarkozy, Bardella replied: “Where does he find this energy?” Moments later, asked the same question about Donald Trump, he gave the same answer. Commentators interpreted it as unusually indulgent toward Trump at a time when Le Pen has sought to put some distance between herself and the US president.

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Bardella backers say Le Pen’s experience cuts both ways. Some within the National Rally suggest Bardella, untarnished by repeated defeats, might stand a better chance of winning.

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Polling offers little guidance. Bardella and Le Pen perform at roughly the same level, but differences are beginning to emerge.

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“Marine Le Pen is less drawn to glitz and glamour,” says Arnaud Stephan, who advised Le Pen during the 2022 presidential campaign, and also her father in the past.

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Bardella’s recently disclosed relationship with Maria Carolina di Borbone delle Due Sicilie, a 22-year-old Italian heiress and social media influencer, has prompted unease among some National Rally figures close to Le Pen. They worry that celebrity headlines and Bardella’s carefully curated public image sit uneasily with a party whose recent electoral successes have been built among blue-collar voters in former industrial and communist strongholds across northern France.