The president of the RN claims his foreign origins. Jordan Bardella even relies on these to illustrate the model of assimilation that he defends.
Jordan Bardella seems destined to mark French political life for a long time. At only 28 years old, the president of the National Rally can count on a career lasting several decades, as his leadership of the French far-right party appears today to be both assured and very little contested. Whether or not he becomes Prime Minister in July, he undoubtedly embodies the renewal of the party created and led by the Le Pens for more than 40 years. And that’s not nothing, the young man has foreign origins that he claims and on which he relies to talk about integration, identity and immigration.
Because if Jordan Bardella was born in September 1995 in Drancy, in the Paris suburbs, his mother, Luisa Bertelli-Mota, was born in 1962 near Turin, to Italian parents, Severino Bertelli-Motta and Iolanda Benedetto. Both of Jordan Bardella’s maternal grandparents lived in Nichelino before emigrating to the Paris suburbs in 1963.
The father of the RN boss is himself of Italian and Franco-Algerian origin, according to information from Jeune Afrique. His paternal grandmother is in fact the daughter of an Algerian from Kabylie, Mohand Séghir Mada, born in Guendouz. This man settled in France in the 1930s in Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon, to work in the textile and construction industry.
Italian origins highlighted
The native of Drancy has for several years woven a well-crafted narrative about her Italian origins. “I came from elsewhere, became from here” he now says from the platform of his meetings, although he spent the entirety of his youth and his young adult life in Seine-Saint -Denis. And to add, as if he himself had immigrated to France with a desire for assimilation: “I made the Republican effort”.
The verse is also quickly found for someone who has three grandparents out of four born in Italy: “I am 75% Italian”, he repeats over and over again, in public meetings or on sets of TV. And to insist that the RN, like the FN before it, has the slogan: “France is earned, where it is inherited”. Understand: my grandparents were integrated through work in France and through their desire to blend into French culture. History does not say, however, what his grandparents thought, who could read on Jean-Marie Le Pen’s posters in the 1980s: “1 million unemployed is 1 million too many immigrants.” !”
A notable discretion about his Algerian great-grandfather
History also does not say why Jordan Bardella is very discreet about his distant Algerian origins. Perhaps because the far right is not the most benevolent towards the immigrant population from Algeria. In July 2023, Marine Le Pen’s niece, Marion Maréchal, fervent defender of a union of the extreme right, had these words at a meeting: “42% of Algerians have no activity in France and they represent the first foreign nationality in prison. We are not Algeria’s daycare!”
A lightning rise to the far right
Jordan Bardella therefore grew up in Drancy, a town in Seine-Saint-Denis. He began his schooling there before continuing his studies at the University of Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, although he did not complete his university studies, preferring to devote himself fully to political activism. Very quickly spotted by Marine Le Pen, he will experience a meteoric rise.
The young man joined the National Front in 2012, at just 16 years old. A very early commitment testifies to his very identity-based convictions, while Marine Le Pen’s party then had no significant parliamentary experience nor the stripes of current notability. Jordan Bardella quickly rose through the ranks of the party: in 2015, he became a parliamentary assistant, in 2017, he was named spokesperson for the FN, and in 2018, he led Génération Nation, the youth branch of the RN.
In 2019, at just 23 years old, he led the RN list in the European elections and was elected MEP. His campaign propelled him to the forefront of the political scene. In 2021, he was appointed interim president of the RN by Marine Le Pen, then elected president of the party in 2022, officially succeeding Marine Le Pen. The young man was also until very recently in a relationship with Nolwenn Olivier, the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, a fact which underlines his close ties with the founding family of the RN.