PARIS — There can only be one number one, and Marine Le Pen knows that too well.
Weeks after she was convicted of embezzlement and effectively barred from standing in the 2027 presidential election, the far-right leader looks increasingly sidelined by her heir apparent Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old president of the National Rally.
A wave of flattering polls for Bardella along with growing skepticism about Le Pen’s political future have put her on the back foot, even if she remains publicly adamant about mounting a fourth presidential campaign.
“For the first time, they are perfectly even” in polls, said Frédéric Dabi, director general at polling firm IFOP. Le Pen and Bardella both attained 31 percent of voting intentions for the first round of the presidential election in a survey published this week — even if such figures must be taken with a large grain of salt two years before the actual contest.
The fact that voters are seemingly fine with swapping Le Pen for Bardella is bound to ruffle feathers in the National Rally, given the party’s history under Le Pen’s iron-fisted father, Jean-Marie, and the internecine battle for succession. Le Pen had carefully assigned roles around her, including Bardella’s, partly to avoid the kinds of rivalries that tore the party apart under her father’s reign.
Questions have been raised as to whether Bardella is ready for the spotlight that accompanies a presidential campaign.
Bardella had been poised to run in the subordinate spot on an American-style ticket with Marine Le Pen, as her future prime minister (in France, the president appoints a prime minister after being elected). But his mentor’s legal troubles mean her Elysée dreams now rest on whether an appeals court rules in her favor next summer.
And so Bardella finds himself propelled to the more prominent — and slightly uncomfortable — role of promising understudy tapped to replace a star not yet ready to step aside.
Le Pen camp on edge
Worryingly for Le Pen, “there are clearly some doubts among her current and potential voters about her being on the starting line in 2027,” Dabi said. In an IFOP survey published May 12, only 53 percent of respondents thought she would be in a position to run, against 69 percent for Bardella.
Publicly, the National Rally has tried to play down any sort of rift. While Bardella has finally acknowledged his newfound status, on Wednesday he told radio station FranceInter that he and Le Pen were “working hand in hand.” He also pledged to support Le Pen’s fight to reverse the court’s decision, which she is framing as an attack on democracy that deprives voters of the National Rally’s preferred candidate.
A top adviser to the party, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, also sought to dismiss the idea that friction was growing between Le Pen and Bardella.
“I can attest that they are working harmoniously together,” the adviser said.
But polling has become a sensitive issue for the National Rally given the uncertainty surrounding Le Pen’s future.
Earlier this month, her most faithful supporters were outraged to discover that a wide-ranging survey about to be published by IFOP polled solely Bardella as the National Rally candidate for 2027. Le Pen was included only after two of her top lieutenants intervened.
The survey bore the mark of conservative billionaire Pierre-Edouard Stérin, a major donor at the institute that commissioned it. Stérin, who has pledged millions to remold French politics in line with his ideals, is reportedly not a fan of Le Pen. Instead he favors right-wing candidates who are economically more liberal than the longtime far-right leader, who rose to power championing protectionist policies.
The episode was framed by Le Pen loyalists as a move to sideline her and give an edge to figures like Bardella, who is seen as more liberal on the economy.
On May 16, a group of experts, civil servants and lawmakers — dubbed Les Horaces, who for years have worked in the shadows to support Le Pen’s platform — went public for the first time. Their first-ever press conference was largely interpreted as an attempt to put their champion back in the spotlight — but that didn’t stop reporters from bombarding the group with questions about their allegiance.
“At the time, Marine Le Pen is the National Rally’s candidate,” André Rougé, a member of the European Parliament who is chairing the group, said when asked whether they would serve Bardella. “The calm veterans like us know that until the whistle blows, you have got to play.”
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