Ask anyone in France today who is most likely to win the 2027 presidential election and the answer is almost certain to be “either Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen.” The two leaders of the far-right Rassemblement National are neck-and-neck in recent popularity polls: in one recent sample, Bardella won the approval of 41% of his countrymen, compared with 39% for Le Pen (and a dismal 20 for President Macron). Le Pen’s star has fallen since her conviction on charges of misappropriating EU funds. Her pending appeal will be decided on July 7, at which point she will either replace Bardella as the candidate of the RN or, more likely, give up her last hope of achieving the office she has pursued for so long. One can feel almost sorry for this turn of fate: the resurrection of the RN from its nadir of 2007 was entirely her work, and the campaign finance irregularity that may bring her down is no worse than similar offenses committed by most of France’s leading politicians. But the law is the law, the evidence against her is overwhelming, and she herself seems to have resigned herself to her exclusion from eligibility.
It’s not unreasonable to ask why she seems willing to go so quietly. To be sure, the cards are stacked against her. She has no legal recourse. But it’s almost as if she has concluded that her best hope of pushing the party across the long-awaited finish line is to allow herself to be ruled hors de combat by the courts. After all, her winning strategy has been to “de-demonize” her party by eliminating all traces of her late father’s influence, and she herself, simply because she indelibly bears her father’s name, is the most visible remaining trace. Her uncharacteristically meek submission to fate may be the ultimate sacrifice she is willing and almost eager to make.
Even if she is not the candidate, she will loom large behind Bardella should he become president. It has become fashionable of late to draw attention to the differences between Le Pen and her protégé. He has taken to supping with captains of industry and proclaiming himself something of a neoliberal on economic matters, whereas MLP likes to imply that if the logic of the market takes jobs from “genuine Frenchmen” and hands them to immigrants, she stands ready to intervene. She wants to roll back the retirement age to 60, whereas Bardella seems receptive to the complaints of his friends in the MEDEF that this would bankrupt them. But of course no one has any idea how the RN would govern if given the chance, since the party has never been anywhere close to calling the shots. Few among its leaders have any experience with managing the economy–Sébastien Chenu being the one prominent exception, and a likely prime minister in case of an RN victory.
Bardella is woefully inexperienced. He has become an effective party spokesperson, but he has yet to be tested in a national campaign as a prospective president; he has not experienced the pressure of a presidential debate; he is easily rattled when probed beyond his prepared talking points: witness his artless bristling at a gotcha question about his failure to attend a funeral for a slain child that coincided with a Grand Prix race in Monaco, at which he appeared with his new girlfriend, a princess and Internet influencer (the inherited title almost as comical as the assumed one). A more seasoned candidate could have adroitly shrugged away such a question with a few well-chosen words.
Is it possible that all the prognostications are wrong? Could Bardella actually fail to survive to the second round? At this point it’s hard to see how. Macron has done such a thorough job of demolishing the center-right and center-left that non-extreme candidates are having a hard time finding their footing on the rubble that remains. Eventually, however, someone will emerge from this morass, and a substantial portion of the electorate remains dismayed by the prospect of a second round pitting Mélenchon against Bardella (or Le Pen). At this point, my bet would be that the first extremist to be eliminated would be Mélenchon, leaving Bardella to face the survivor of the battle for the center. But if Bardella slips badly during the campaign, it could go the other way. Il faut laisser les choses se décanter.