Nabila Ramdani

Amid the tear-gas fumes and flying stun grenades it was easy to miss the ceremony taking place on the Pont Saint-Michel on Saturday, 17 October. A group of French-Algerians threw flowers into the Seine to mark the 65th anniversary of the worst police massacre in Europe since the Second World War.

Jordan Bardella was supposed to be a different kind of far-right French politician: young, technically savvy, a long way from the poisonous demagoguery and street fighting of the old Front National. Mediapart, the investigative news site, last month published some of Bardella’s Facebook Messenger correspondence from when he was an aspiring FN apparatchik in 2013. Leaked by former party colleagues, it included such conspiratorial claims as ‘the Jew must dominate other peoples, crush them and rob them’ and ‘all the banks are owned by Jews.’ Since he denied writing the Facebook messages, rival politicians have joined other public figures in openly referring to Bardella as a liar as well as an antisemite. 

The hollowness of the RN revolution became clear this week, when Marine Le Pen announced she would be standing again to become France’s head of state, despite a criminal conviction for embezzlement being upheld. In 2013, she had asked: ‘When will we implement a lifetime ban on holding office for anyone convicted of offences committed thanks to their mandate or while in office?’