Not in the mood. Jordan Bardella is rarely in the mood to talk to the press these days. It’s a shame in the middle of the campaign, especially when the press is summoned to present its European project. This Thursday, April 25, therefore, Jordan Bardella arrived at his own appointment a good twenty minutes late, to unfold the elements that he has been providing at length and breadth in his interventions for months. “We want to build a Europe adapted to the great needs of our time around three pillars: a Europe which protects, which produces and which respects”, he began before reciting a summary of his last ten television appearances.
A little dig, all the same, to Emmanuel Macron, who gave a speech this Thursday morning at the Sorbonne. And this eternal – and chimerical – call for a dissolution of the National Assembly in the event of victory on June 9. Concerning the frontist project, a few selected and already well-known pieces: “Establish a Europe of sovereign nations adapted to the realities of our time”, “End with normative Europe”, “put an end to the immigrationist wave”. Twenty-five minutes later, the head of the frontist list packs up her files and turns on her heel, specifying: “I thank you and I leave you in the expert hands of our campaign director, who will answer all your questions.”
So here is Alexandre Loubet, the campaign director in question, thrown under the wheels of the bus. Clinging to the desk, the deputy for Moselle pretends to ignore the incongruity of his presence, brushes aside the subject of the German allies of the RN in the European Parliament (whose head of list is splashed by cases of interference linked to China and Russia), which he describes as “political questions”. However, he does not consider it useful to specify why the RN candidate refused to answer questions concerning his program, his campaign, or his allies in the European Parliament. By way of justification, a bold parallel with the speech of Emmanuel Macron who, at the Sorbonne, did not engage in the question-and-answer game either. Without specifying that the head of state did not summon the press to a press conference.
Avoiding the contradiction
This is not the first time that Jordan Bardella has avoided contradiction. For several months, he has already refused to participate in three debates against his opponents. Questioned at the end of February about this strategy of avoidance, concerning a debate organized by Public Senate, he indulged in irony in front of around twenty journalists: “And why not Coquelicot TV!” The anecdote was relayed by La Tribune Sunday, and used as a pretext by Bardella’s teams to put an end to the “off”, these times of informal exchange between journalists and politicians. Internal justification: “The off is a journalistic exercise, it doesn’t bring back a voter and doesn’t bring us anything, apart from trouble.” “Bardella does everything to become colorless, odorless. It becomes a vote without roughness, without hitches and worries. What is frustrating is to see him fleeing the opportunities to debate, he only progresses through silence and ambiguity,” laments the leader LR François-Xavier Bellamy.
But rest assured, “Jordan Bardella has no problem with contradiction”, specifies Alexandre Loubet. After all, with more than 30% of voting intentions in the polls, why bother with embarrassing questions? Especially at a time when the Identity and Democracy group, to which the RN belongs, is in trouble, while frontist allies are implicated in cases of interference, or when the Italian Lega, another allied party, has just include Roberto Vannacci in his list, an Italian general author of a book in which he details that homosexuals are “not normal”, or that a black Italian sportswoman does not represent “Italianness“. Why address angry subjects? And technical subjects? He whose competence comes to be questioned by his adversaries.
At headquarters, we watch Jordan Bardella leave the premises while looking for justifications. Even Caroline Parmentier, in charge of press relations and clearly unaware that her candidate intended to skip the last part of the press conference. “The agenda is very, very busy,” assures one in the Bardellist ranks. Jordan Bardella still managed to free up a small slot this Thursday evening to answer questions from Boulevard Voltaire (Gabrielle Cluzel’s far-right online media), no doubt driven by the call of contradiction.