Le Pen and Bardella staging kiss-and-make-up moment

PARIS  — The far-right leader Marine Le Pen and her heir-apparent, National Rally President Jordan Bardella, will attempt to put on a show of unity Wednesday after tensions between the two bubbled over in recent weeks.

The duo will jointly attend Eurosatory, one of the world’s biggest arms shows, north of Paris, where they’ll be able to display their like-mindedness on issues of security and defense.

The visit, according to one National Rally lawmaker, is meant to reaffirm their “joint ticket” proposal ahead of the 2027 presidential election, with Le Pen running for the top job and promising to nominate Bardella as her prime minister if she wins.

Already one of the far right’s heavy hitters, Bardella has been propelled deeper into the spotlight after Le Pen’s presidential hopes were dealt a likely fatal blow in March when a French court found her guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds. Le Pen was immediately barred from running for public office for the next five years, and has only a slim chance of overturning the verdict with her appeal slated for next year.

“She’s not yet dead but already some are trying to bury her. She finds it exasperating,” said the National Rally lawmaker, who, like others quoted in this story, was granted anonymity to discuss the far-right party’s internal politics. “She wants to publicly reaffirm that she is still here.”

The verdict fueled rumors of a split between the two, as Bardella would be the natural candidate to succeed Le Pen should her appeal fail, as he himself has acknowledged publicly.

Recent surveys show the two leaders performing similarly in polls regarding the 2027 contest.

While the two have publicly said they remain in lockstep, they have sometimes appeared at odds. Le Pen’s exasperation with their contrasting fortunes last month boiled over during a visit to the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.

She said at the time she “wasn’t sure that Jordan … knows the problems New Caledonia faces very well. We have different talents.”

On Tuesday, Bardella again fueled speculation over a growing rivalry with Le Pen, when he appeared to favor an early presidential election.

“In reality, only a presidential election, even an early one, would enable us to emerge from the current democratic crisis,” said Bardella on French radio.

But an early presidential election would de facto exclude Le Pen, who currently cannot run for public office, and who has already lost a local mandate.

While French President Emmanuel Macron has categorically denied he could resign and trigger an early presidential election before the end of his mandate in 2027, political opponents regularly call for one as a way out of the parliamentary impasse.

Le Pen’s supporters have since tried to downplay Bardella’s comment. One ally described it to POLITICO as an “unfortunate turn of phrase” while another said the party leader, who is only 29 years old, was “shooting from the hip.”

But faux pas such as these will necessarily remind voters of both Le Pen’s legal woes and Bardella’s inexperience, which could become a liability on the campaign trail — particularly if he’s up against experienced right-wing presidential hopefuls such as the former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe or the popular hard-hitting Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau.