A new French National Rally leader replaces Le Pen

• Jordan Bardella, 27, will lead France’s far-right National Rally (RN) after Marine Le Pen quit last year.
• Ms. Le Pen will lead the RN’s National Assembly group after it gained 89 seats this year.
• The party had its best-ever performance and gained 89 seats, a 10-fold increase.

Jordan Bardella, 27, has been named as Marine Le Pen’s replacement as party head by France’s far-right National Rally (RN).

After her party won 89 seats in the National Assembly earlier this year, Ms. Le Pen will instead concentrate on steering its parliamentary group.

The main far-right party is not led by a Le Pen for the first time in its 50-year history.

However, the action does not signify a significant shift in the party’s course.

Marine Le Pen continues to be the source of genuine power and is still a strong contender for the 2027 presidential election.

She assured the gathering on Saturday that she would not leave politics.

“I am not leaving RN to take a holiday. I will be there where the country needs me,” she said at the party convention.

Mr. Bardella, who was raised in a low-income Italian family in the suburbs of Paris, joined the far-right when he was a teenager and soon rose to the top of the organization, functioning as the party’s president last year.

He directed the RN’s productive European election campaign in 2019 and has since impressed even his adversaries with his tenacity in discussions.

He is seen as loyal to Ms. Le Pen, telling AFP news agency recently that he is a “continuity candidate with the aim of building on the incredible legacy that Marine is handing over”.

His promotion to the top ranks of the party is an effort by the RN to improve its reputation and win over younger supporters.

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He likes to present himself as a fresh breed of nationalist, unlike Ms. Le Pen, who shares little in common with the racism and anti-Semitism of the National Front, the party’s forerunner.

But detractors claim that similar attitudes are still present within the party.

In the most recent issue, a legislator from the RN was expelled from the National Assembly for two weeks after reportedly making a racial comment when a black MP was speaking.

Following the death of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2011, Ms. Le Pen resigned from her position as party leader last year. She did this in order to concentrate on her presidential campaign, which she ultimately lost to President Emmanuel Macron in a run-off in April.

Despite the loss, she led the RN’s parliamentary election campaign two months later, during which the party had its best-ever performance and gained 89 seats, a 10-fold increase.

President Macron’s party lost its majority as a result of the far-right and the left’s electoral victories in those elections.

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