In an interview with Politico’s Playbook, Jordan Bardella, head of the National Rally list for the European elections, states in particular that he does not want France to leave the integrated command of NATO if his party comes to power as long as the war in Ukraine will be “still in progress”. Temporization which did not appear in Marine Le Pen’s presidential program in 2022. This is not the first divergence, far from it, between the two leaders of the RN.
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Is there friction on the line between Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, and Marine Le Pen, the party’s three-time presidential candidate? As every time the student deviates from the line set by his teacher, the party’s communicators rush to clear the way. Today, supporting video, they point out that in March 2022, the presidential candidate was the first to admit that it was not necessary to change the treaties in the middle of war on European soil. But now, the exit from the integrated NATO command did feature at that time, and unconditionally, in the RN presidential program. The war had already started by then.
In Marine Le Pen’s program in 2022 there was another proposal, watered down today by the head of the party’s list for Europeans: the exit from the European electricity market ” to find decent prices “. In his interview with Politico, Jordan Bardella no longer mentions this release and simply prefers “ modify the operating rules ” of the market.
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Blatant differences of opinion on Ukraine
More and more frequent fluctuations, even divergences of views never assumed, but nevertheless very real between the two heads of the party. During the farmers’ angry movement last February, Jordan Bardella changed his position, in less than 24 hours, on the proposal of guaranteed minimum prices to operators and takes the opposite view of the official position of the party. Marine Le Pen dodges, pointing the finger at a misunderstanding maintained by the media, but unease is felt within the flame party.
On the subject of Ukraine, the two leaders sometimes contradict each other just a few days apart. Last week, Jordan Bardella made the opening of peace negotiations conditional on the withdrawal of Russian troops, when Marine Le Pen did not believe it, from the podium of the Assembly at the beginning of March. The president of the party no longer opposes the delivery of long-range French Scalp missiles to Ukraine when, in November 2023 on France Inter, the head of the RN deputies called to stop delivering weapons “ at the risk of continuing the butchery “.
Non-exhaustive examples which betray, at the very least, a lack of coordination of the tandem, if not a deeper problem of line between the favorite in the polls for the Europeans and the one who would see himself returned for a fourth consecutive candidacy for the presidential, in 2027.