The president of France’s hard-right National Rally (RN), Jordan Bardella, has said he will sue for libel after a report published antisemitic comments that it alleged he had made as a young activist.
The Mediapart website released what it said was the result of “several months” of investigation into “dozens of written conversations” Bardella allegedly had in 2013.
With seven months to go before France’s presidential elections, Bardella condemned “the beginnings of a total war” aimed at destabilising his party, and RN presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said she had total confidence in him.
The alleged remarks included blatantly antisemitic tropes, and Bardella said they were an attempt to destroy his political career.
Mediapart did not produce screen-grabs of any of the alleged remarks. It said it had “independently authenticated” the conversations, which came from “a bigger documentary base corroborated by witness statements”.
But Bardella, 31 – who is a likely prime minister if Le Pen wins the presidential election – said the allegations were a fabrication aimed at derailing the RN’s increasingly confident bid for power.
“Everything is going to be done to destabilise the campaign,” he told CNews television on Monday night. “Either Mediapart is running this operation itself, or it is being manipulated by interested parties.
“Of course I have instructed my lawyer to sue for libel.”
Le Pen said the alleged remarks “seem so weird that they can only be a forgery – one of those dirty tricks for which Mediapart appears to hold the secret”.
Among the statements that Mediapart alleges Bardella made when he was 17 or 18 are: “All the banks are owned by Jews”; “The Jew has to dominate other people, crush them and rob them”; and “What they want is a new world order dominated by Israel, with of course Jerusalem as its capital.”
Mediapart is an avowedly leftwing website which has exposed a number of scandals over the years, though its targets have been politicians of all stripes.
The French hard right is riding higher than ever in pre-election polls, with the latest this week, from Toluna-Harris, showing Le Pen a clear victor over whatever rival she faces in the crucial second round in May.
