Jordan Bardella is coming for Europe
In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, the leader of the National Rally said he would seek to halve France’s contribution to the EU budget.
By MARION SOLLETTY
BRUSSELS — Jordan Bardella has a warning for Brussels: France’s far right is softening its line on NATO, but not on the European Union.
In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, the French presidential front-runner vowed to challenge the EU’s long-term budget, cut France’s contribution to Brussels and build alliances with nationalist governments to force a rethink of how the bloc works.
“What the European Union stands for — what it was founded on — positive globalization, absolute market power, uncontrolled immigration, economic decline, and excessive regulations on the economy, businesses and European industry, all of this is profoundly outdated, all of this is profoundly old-fashioned, obsolete,” said Bardella, a member of the European Parliament and president of France’s far-right National Rally.
“So we must change the way the European Union functions,” he added.
Bardella’s words will do little to reassure partners abroad who may have thought of him as smoother and less confrontational than his mentor Marine Le Pen, more likely to seek compromise with the EU than to try to blow it up.
In the interview, conducted ahead of a trip to Poland, Bardella sought to reassure allies about the National Rally’s stance on NATO and France’s security commitments to Europe’s eastern flank.
But on EU affairs, he still wants to fundamentally reshape the bloc — a warning shot to Europhiles hoping he would govern more like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has cut deals in Brussels, than former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who repeatedly jammed the EU machinery.
“We do not wish to leave the European Union,” said Bardella. “We wish to change everything without destroying anything.”
The far-right leader singled out the EU’s next long-term budget as an early battleground. While many in Brussels hope to wrap up negotiations before the end of the year, Bardella denounced the timetable as an attempt to lock in spending plans before a possible political shift in Paris.
“The idea is obviously to lock in the budget before a potential change in the majority in France,” he said, describing it as “profoundly anti-democratic.”
“The next French executive, whoever it may be, must have a say in this budget because it will commit France — and thus the future of the French people and the budget of our fellow citizens — for years to come,” he added.
In an escalation from his previous statements on the subject, Bardella said he would immediately seek to “cut in half” the country’s contribution to the EU budget, which he said is “projected to increase at a delusional rate.”
“We do not wish to leave the European Union,” said Bardella. “We wish to change everything without destroying anything.” | Esmeralda Wijangco for POLITICOHe framed his demands as the equivalent of the rebates some wealthier EU countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, have obtained regarding their contributions to the bloc’s budget.
“We will give the French their money back, and because France is destined to make itself respected and defend its interests,” he said, warning the European Commission that if it wanted to find more money, it would have to cut into its operating expenses.
The argument echoed U.K. populist Nigel Farage’s Brexit-era pitch: that breaking with Brussels was the way to regain control over national finances. But Bardella is making it in France, a founding EU member with public accounts that are already under severe strain.
European offensive
On July 7, Bardella will learn whether he will be his party’s candidate for next year’s presidential election. That’s when an appeals court is due to rule on whether to uphold Le Pen’s conviction for embezzlement and the accompanying five-year ban on holding public office.
If Bardella is tapped to run, he is widely favored to win the first round. Early polls also show him beating other contenders in the runoff, though only narrowly against centrist candidates.
His trip to Poland is part of a broader outreach to potential partners and ideological fellow travelers, such as Meloni, whom he openly admires.
While Bardella has said that he sees “common ground” with Germany’s conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz on easing regulation and curbing migration, he made clear in the interview that he is first looking to fellow nationalist parties as allies.
In Warsaw this week, the French far-right leader said he would meet with figures from the Law and Justice party — a right-wing party that controls the country’s presidency and is second in the polls ahead of a parliamentary election due next year, possibly giving it the opportunity to head a coalition government.
“Our ambition is to think big and to build this new European architecture that we envision,” said Bardella during the interview. “I am hopeful that if, in a few months, the French people place their trust in us and we assume the presidency of the French Republic … that we will be able to expand this alliance” with like-minded European parties and governments.
France’s allies in eastern Europe are closely watching the far right’s stance on NATO and defense, as Russia’s war in Ukraine has triggered a rearmament race across the continent.
Bardella has softened Le Pen’s longstanding pledge to pull France from NATO’s integrated military command, a cornerstone of the party’s traditionally isolationist stance. The move would mean French troops would be less involved in the alliance’s joint planning.
“We do not wish to leave this integrated command as long as there is war at Europe’s doorstep,” he said. “One doesn’t redefine the framework of treaties in times of war.”
France’s President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech next to a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine on March 2, 2026. | Yoan Valat/AFP via Getty ImagesWhile insisting that France would honor its security commitments to eastern-flank allies, including Romania and the Baltic states, Bardella said that a National Rally government would focus first on defending French interests.
When it comes to nuclear deterrence, France’s postwar leader Charles de Gaulle “rightly reminded us that the defense of the French nation’s vital interests did not stop at France’s borders,” he said.
He cited a threat to “the Benelux region” — Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg — as an example in which France’s interests would be considered at stake.
The shadow of Le Pen
Bardella’s diplomatic effort is also an exercise in political repositioning. In his preparations for a possible presidential run, the 30-year-old has sought to downplay some of the foreign-policy stances that defined the National Rally under Le Pen.
Bardella was only 19 when the party negotiated a controversial multimillion-euro loan from a Russian bank, and he has made a point of distancing himself from pro-Kremlin party figures — especially in the years since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale assault on Ukraine.
“President Putin’s Russia is a multidimensional threat,” said Bardella in the interview, accusing Moscow of carrying out “direct aggression” against “French interests and European interests.”
On foreign affairs, Bardella has leaned heavily on members of his European Parliament delegation with ties to Eastern Europe. They include Fabrice Leggeri, the former head of the EU border agency Frontex who was based in Warsaw, and Pierre-Romain Thionnet, an influential figure in the party’s younger generation who has traveled to Ukraine.
Thionnet’s relative hawkishness has caused frictions with some members of the party’s old guard, who would prefer to stick to the nonaligned foreign policy championed by Le Pen.
Tensions between the two factions spilled into public view last week, when Thionnet posted on X, slamming what he described as “pacifism” in nationalist circles. It prompted a rebuke from veteran National Rally MEP Philippe Olivier, Le Pen’s brother-in-law and longtime adviser, who replied: “Is war in the national interest?” After that, Thionnet deleted his initial post.
The dispute reflects a broader debate within the party over how far Bardella should go in recasting the National Rally before a possible presidential run, including on the economy, where he has sought to woo more moderate voters.
Bardella has entrusted a close-knit group of advisers and lawmakers with developing the party’s economic platform for 2027, including a three-person task force charged with identifying regulatory burdens to cut.
Among them is his new special adviser François Durvye, a prominent financier who has been at the forefront of efforts to build bridges with the country’s business elite and has steered his boss toward more fiscal discipline, including on pensions.
The tiptoeing was clear at a press conference in Brussels Thursday, when Bardella warned of a showdown with the EU if his party came to power. | Esmeralda Wijangco for POLITICOBardella’s announcement last month that the party was “examining” its pledge to return the retirement age to 62 was met with fury from the National Rally’s old guard close to Le Pen, who fret that a shift on the issue could alienate the working-class voters that have fueled that party’s rise.
“He wants to look into other possibilities” than lowering the retirement age, said a close adviser to Bardella. “She doesn’t.”
Youth factor
For Bardella and Le Pen, the past few months have been a delicate balancing act, with Bardella pledging loyalty to his mentor while trying to project the presidential stature he would need if he takes over as the party’s candidate in early July.
The tiptoeing was clear at a press conference in Brussels Thursday, when Bardella warned of a showdown with the EU if his party came to power.
“If the French people place their trust in us in a few months, as we have said, we will make our first trip to Brussels, Marine or me… or Marine and me… to address the current dysfunctions of the European Union,” he said.
For her part, Le Pen has long framed her trial over the alleged embezzlement of EU funds as politically motivated. She has publicly championed Bardella as a strong fallback candidate, while trying to quash speculation that her protégé’s rise in the polls makes him more likely to sideline her.
Still, she hasn’t been able to avoid the occasional slipup.
During a campaign for local elections in March, when a voter called on her to step aside in favor of young Bardella, she quipped: “Beware, Macron too was elected young and he did terrible things.”
As a presidential candidate, Bardella has advantages over Le Pen, whose long experience and strong political instincts come with baggage: a name still toxic to parts of the electorate, repeated policy U-turns — most notably on leaving the EU — and a pro-Kremlin image that has plagued her party since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
By contrast, Bardella’s youth and polish work in his favor with more moderate voters. Where Le Pen can sound combative, he has the deft smoothness of a candidate who has spent nearly all his adult life in front of microphones.
The only child of separated working-class parents, Bardella grew up in public housing north of Paris, dividing his time between his mother, a nursery assistant from Turin, and his father, the son of an Italian immigrant, who ran a drinks vending machine business.
Yet Bardella’s assets are also his biggest vulnerabilities, used by his critics to argue that he lacks substance and executive experience.
Marine Le Pen is pictured during her appeal trial on charges of embezzlement of European public funds on Jan. 21, 2026. | Stephane De Sakutin/AFP via Getty ImagesProfessionally, Bardella has known only the National Rally. He joined the party in 2012 while still in secondary school and catapulted up its ranks. After serving as a parliamentary assistant and local councilor in 2015, he became the party’s spokesperson in 2017, then its vice president and a member of the European Parliament in 2019.
“There will be a great deal of attention paid to the [candidates’] ability to steer the country in a turbulent international environment,” said Renew MEP Nathalie Loiseau, a top ally of Bardella’s leading centrist rival, former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. Succeeding will “require clear convictions, proven experience and a credible character,” she said, suggesting Bardella doesn’t have what it takes.
Loiseau added a jab at Bardella mocking a recent Ukraine visit by Philippe, which the far-right leader has dismissed as a political stunt. “You can see how pathetic this is,” added Loiseau. “It’s a way to divert attention from the emptiness on substance.”
Whatever the truth about Bardella’s age and lack of executive experience, there’s no denying his virtuosity when it comes to communication, whether on TikTok, in debates with opponents or in media interventions.
As the interview with POLITICO neared its end, he was told he was about to be asked an embarrassing question about his girlfriend, Maria Carolina de Bourbon des Deux-Siciles, an Italian princess and influencer.
“Despite my young age, I’ve been doing interviews very regularly for a long time, so I’m not really embarrassed by questions,” he said.