Jordan Bardella has been invited to take part in an international conference on the fight against anti-Semitism in Israel on Wednesday and Thursday, a further step in the National Rally's strategy of normalization. However, anti-Semitism is still very much present among elected officials and supporters of the far-right party.
Published : 25/03/2025 -
FRANCE24
By: Romain BRUNET
The president of the French far-right party National Rally (RN) and member of the European Parliament, Jordan Bardella in Montélimar on February 1, 2025. (Illustration) (Illustration) © Jean-Philippe Ksiazek, AFP
It is an invitation that looks like a culmination. The president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, and the MEP Marion Maréchal are invited to Israel on Wednesday 26 and Thursday 27 March to participate in an international conference on the fight against anti-Semitism. More than 50 years after its creation by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the company of a former Waffen-SS, Pierre Bousquet, the National Front, which became the National Rally in 2018, is thus masquerading as a party fighting against anti-Semitism.
After the presence of the far-right party at the march against anti-Semitism on November 12, 2023 and the dubbing received by the historian Serge Klarsfeld in June 2024, this is one more step in the de-demonization at work since the takeover of the party by Marine Le Pen in 2011, and continued with Jordan Bardella.
To be readEuropean far-right in Israel to talk about anti-Semitism, controversial invitation
"This strategy has been made in particular on the issue of anti-Semitism, considered a disqualifying stigma to access power. So being received in Israel is obviously something that can be used as an argument against those who continue to think that the RN is a far-right party. Jordan Bardella can thus give the impression that his party is working on this issue and that it has evolved," analyses political scientist Sylvain Crépon, a lecturer at the University of Tours.
And even if Marine Le Pen had expelled her father from the party in 2015, precisely on this issue, behind the veneer of respectability, anti-Semitism still runs through the French far right and the National Rally in particular.
Anti-Semitic prejudices very present on the far right
In its annual report on the fight against racism, antisemitism and xenophobia published in June 2024, which highlighted an explosion in antisemitic acts since the October 7, 2023 attacks perpetrated by Hamas against Israel, the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) stressed that there was far-left antisemitism in France but that it was "without comparison with that observed on the far right and among those close to the National Rally".
"In general, far-right sympathizers remain the most inclined to agree with these traditional anti-Semitic prejudices: 34% of RN sympathizers believe that 'Jews have too much power', 51% adhere to the stereotype of the 'dual allegiance' of French Jews and 51% attribute to them a particular relationship with money, which is systematically much more than the average French person and supporters of other major political parties," according to the CNCDH study.
To be readBy marching against anti-Semitism, Marine Le Pen is taking another step towards its normalization
"What has changed is that anti-Semitism that is displayed and liberated no longer has the right to exist. In the 1990s, I frequently heard anti-Semitic remarks from officials or members of the National Front. Now, these remarks have disappeared because instructions have been given. But I note that some people who were members of the party 20 years ago and who made anti-Semitic remarks then are still members of the RN today. The clean-up has not been completely done," says Sylvain Crépon.
Proof of an incomplete clean-up, each election brings its share of revelations about the candidates presented by the National Rally. Several investigations, notably by Libération and Mediapart, have revealed the presence of anti-Semitic National Rally candidates in the 2024 legislative elections.
Several more openly anti-Semitic candidates in 2024
Thus, Mediapart revealed that the former deputy of the Aisne Jocelyn Dessigny, candidate for re-election, had posted on his Facebook account a photo of himself wearing a T-shirt of the identity rock group In memoriam, known to neo-Nazis for having covered a march song of the Hitler Youth, La Colonne.
The RN has also once again invested in Paris Agnès Pageard who, in February 2021 on her X account, according to Libération, called for "rereading Henry Coston", a collaborationist essayist known for his anti-Semitism and anti-Masonism.
To be read2024 legislative elections: the pretences of the National Rally
The same problem exists in Gironde with Sandrine Chadourne, RN municipal councillor of Pineuilh, who is used to "likes" anti-Semitic pages, "such as that of the newspaper Rivarol or the website Jeune Nation, a showcase for the neo-fascist movement Les Nationalistes," says Libération.
At the time, Jordan Bardella described these candidates as "black sheep" of the RN and assured that he did not have "a trembling hand" when he withdrew their nomination from the party.
"But even today, you have in the National Assembly an RN deputy, Frédéric Boccaletti, who ran a bookshop in Toulon for years that sold anti-Semitic books. It was even called Anthinéa, which is the title of a book by Charles Maurras, one of the great theoreticians of anti-Semitism in France," says Sylvain Crépon about a past that Jordan Bardella's trip to Israel will never be able to erase.
It is an invitation that looks like a culmination. The president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, and the MEP Marion Maréchal are invited to Israel on Wednesday 26 and Thursday 27 March to participate in an international conference on the fight against anti-Semitism. More than 50 years after its creation by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the company of a former Waffen-SS, Pierre Bousquet, the National Front, which became the National Rally in 2018, is thus masquerading as a party fighting against anti-Semitism.
After the presence of the far-right party at the march against anti-Semitism on November 12, 2023 and the dubbing received by the historian Serge Klarsfeld in June 2024, this is one more step in the de-demonization at work since the takeover of the party by Marine Le Pen in 2011, and continued with Jordan Bardella.
To be readEuropean far-right in Israel to talk about anti-Semitism, controversial invitation
"This strategy has been made in particular on the issue of anti-Semitism, considered a disqualifying stigma to access power. So being received in Israel is obviously something that can be used as an argument against those who continue to think that the RN is a far-right party. Jordan Bardella can thus give the impression that his party is working on this issue and that it has evolved," analyses political scientist Sylvain Crépon, a lecturer at the University of Tours.
However, the president of the National Rally sometimes finds it difficult to completely detach himself from his party's past. Asked in 2023 a few days before the march against anti-Semitism on BFMTV about the anti-Semitism of Jean-Marie Le Pen - convicted more than 25 times by the courts for glorifying war crimes, incitement to hatred and discrimination, anti-Semitism and public insults - Jordan Bardella replied: "I don't believe that Jean-Marie Le Pen was anti-Semitic".
And even if Marine Le Pen had expelled her father from the party in 2015, precisely on this issue, behind the veneer of respectability, anti-Semitism still runs through the French far right and the National Rally in particular.
Anti-Semitic prejudices very present on the far right
In its annual report on the fight against racism, antisemitism and xenophobia published in June 2024, which highlighted an explosion in antisemitic acts since the October 7, 2023 attacks perpetrated by Hamas against Israel, the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) stressed that there was far-left antisemitism in France but that it was "without comparison with that observed on the far right and among those close to the National Rally".
"In general, far-right sympathizers remain the most inclined to agree with these traditional anti-Semitic prejudices: 34% of RN sympathizers believe that 'Jews have too much power', 51% adhere to the stereotype of the 'dual allegiance' of French Jews and 51% attribute to them a particular relationship with money, which is systematically much more than the average French person and supporters of other major political parties," according to the CNCDH study.
To be readBy marching against anti-Semitism, Marine Le Pen is taking another step towards its normalization
"What has changed is that anti-Semitism that is displayed and liberated no longer has the right to exist. In the 1990s, I frequently heard anti-Semitic remarks from officials or members of the National Front. Now, these remarks have disappeared because instructions have been given. But I note that some people who were members of the party 20 years ago and who made anti-Semitic remarks then are still members of the RN today. The clean-up has not been completely done," says Sylvain Crépon.
Proof of an incomplete clean-up, each election brings its share of revelations about the candidates presented by the National Rally. Several investigations, notably by Libération and Mediapart, have revealed the presence of anti-Semitic National Rally candidates in the 2024 legislative elections.
Several more openly anti-Semitic candidates in 2024
Thus, Mediapart revealed that the former deputy of the Aisne Jocelyn Dessigny, candidate for re-election, had posted on his Facebook account a photo of himself wearing a T-shirt of the identity rock group In memoriam, known to neo-Nazis for having covered a march song of the Hitler Youth, La Colonne.
The RN has also once again invested in Paris Agnès Pageard who, in February 2021 on her X account, according to Libération, called for "rereading Henry Coston", a collaborationist essayist known for his anti-Semitism and anti-Masonism.
To be read2024 legislative elections: the pretences of the National Rally
The same problem exists in Gironde with Sandrine Chadourne, RN municipal councillor of Pineuilh, who is used to "likes" anti-Semitic pages, "such as that of the newspaper Rivarol or the website Jeune Nation, a showcase for the neo-fascist movement Les Nationalistes," says Libération.
At the time, Jordan Bardella described these candidates as "black sheep" of the RN and assured that he did not have "a trembling hand" when he withdrew their nomination from the party.
"But even today, you have in the National Assembly an RN deputy, Frédéric Boccaletti, who ran a bookshop in Toulon for years that sold anti-Semitic books. It was even called Anthinéa, which is the title of a book by Charles Maurras, one of the great theoreticians of anti-Semitism in France," says Sylvain Crépon about a past that Jordan Bardella's trip to Israel will never be able to erase.
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