Jordan Bardella will take legal action against the publication that accused him of spreading antisemitic messages

Marine Le Pen accuses the French publication Mediapart of carrying out a manipulation operation intended to harm the presidential campaign of the Rassemblement National party, following the publication of antisemitic messages attributed to Jordan Bardella. The revelations were published on September 28, approximately seven months before France’s presidential election.

Mediapart claims that the messages were written in 2013, when Bardella was 17 or 18 years old and was an activist for the National Front, the former name of the RN. The publication states that the private conversations were independently verified. Among the statements attributed to Bardella are some that are explicitly antisemitic: "The Jew wants to dominate the other peoples, crush them, and plunder them."

In other messages cited by Mediapart, the current RN leader allegedly stated that "all banks are owned by Jews" and spoke of a supposed "total influence of the Jewish-Zionist community" over France. Jordan Bardella formally denied the authenticity of the messages, calling them “blatant forgeries.” Marine Le Pen defended him and declared that the accusations represented “madness” and a manipulation operation.

The scandal is putting pressure on the Le Pen-Bardella tandem, as the RN leader seeks to portray the party as firmly pro-Israel. In March 2025, he visited Israel and the Yad Vashem memorial. The revelations come after the French justice system reduced, on appeal, the consequences of Le Pen’s conviction, allowing her to continue preparations for the 2027 election.