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Jordan Bardella, the president of France's far-right Rassemblement National (RN), has publicly rejected allegations that he sent anti-Semitic private messages roughly a decade ago, describing the claims as fabricated and part of a coordinated effort to damage his party's rising political fortunes.
The allegations were published on Monday by Mediapart, a left-leaning French investigative outlet, which reported that it had reviewed dozens of private messages exchanged between 2013 and 2015 that it said revealed a pattern of anti-Semitic rhetoric. The report surfaced just a day after the RN captured a record 14 Senate seats, a result that underscored the party's growing institutional strength ahead of presidential elections scheduled for early next year.
In a statement posted on social media, Bardella said he "formally dispute[s] the accusations" and characterized the messages attributed to him as "obviously blatant forgeries." He emphasized that the remarks were alleged to have been made when he was a minor, a detail his defense appears to lean on heavily as it questions both the authenticity and the context of the material.
The 31-year-old politician, who is a close ally of presidential frontrunner Marine Le Pen, went further by accusing what he called the "activist press" of orchestrating "smear operations" designed to "destabilise" the RN's presidential campaign. He argued that the timing of the publication reflects panic among his opponents, claiming that "the victory of our ideas has never been so close."
According to Mediapart, the messages include one in which Bardella allegedly wrote that "all the banks are owned by Jews." The outlet also cited another message in which he purportedly said: "The Jew has to dominate other peoples, crush them, and rob them; a Zionist is necessarily a Jew, and fundamentally so." Mediapart said it independently authenticated the private messages and also relied on testimony from former party colleagues to corroborate its findings.
Bardella, who is widely tipped to become prime minister if Le Pen wins the presidency, said he has instructed his lawyer to pursue "all necessary proceedings" against those responsible for the report. Speaking to the right-wing French outlet CNews, he insisted that his record on the issue is unambiguous, stating that he has "never had any ambiguity about the fight against anti-Semitism" and noting that he was received by the Israeli government in 2025.
Le Pen herself quickly came to her protégé's defense, telling reporters that the report could "only be a fake, a manipulation, a dirty trick." She added that she expects Bardella to file a defamation lawsuit imminently, signaling that the party intends to fight the allegations in court rather than merely in the media.
The controversy strikes at a sensitive moment for the RN, which has spent years attempting to distance itself from the racist and anti-Semitic history associated with its predecessor, the National Front. The party was founded by Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and led by Marine Le Pen from 2011 to 2021 before changing its name in 2018 as part of a broader rebranding effort aimed at broadening its appeal.
Bardella has been the public face of that modernization project, cultivating a polished image and seeking to present the party as a mainstream governing force rather than a fringe movement. His efforts have included a deliberate outreach to Jewish voters and a vocal commitment to combating anti-Semitism, a stance that makes the current allegations particularly damaging to the party's carefully constructed narrative.
The RN's rebranding has not been without setbacks. During the 2024 legislative elections, a series of anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and racist comments by party candidates hampered its chances of winning a parliamentary majority. At the time, Bardella pledged to avoid what he described as "casting errors" by systematically expelling candidates with a history of toxic statements, a promise that now carries added weight given the current scrutiny.
Bardella had been the party's de facto presidential candidate until July, when an appeals court cleared Marine Le Pen to run for the presidency in 2027, reshaping the RN's internal calculus. Le Pen has also sought to soften the party's racist image and has emphasized building closer ties with Israel, a strategy that aligns with Bardella's own messaging on the issue.
The timing of the Mediapart report, coming immediately after the RN's Senate gains, suggests that the French political establishment is increasingly treating the party as a genuine contender for national power rather than a protest movement. That shift raises the stakes for how the allegations are handled and whether they resonate with voters who may already have factored the party's controversial past into their calculus.
For now, Bardella's response follows a familiar playbook: deny the claims, attack the messenger, and promise legal action. Whether that approach succeeds in containing the fallout will depend on how the courts, the media and the electorate weigh a decade-old private exchange against a carefully curated public image.
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