"The Jew controls the banks, and must crush other peoples": Le Pen's running mate in trouble

The French investigative site Mediapart has revealed alleged 2013 messages in which Jordan Bardella, Marine Le Pen's running mate, made severe anti-Semitic statements. Bardella denies the allegations and threatens a libel suit, while Le Pen backs him. The party sees the affair as an attempt to harm the campaign.

The French investigative site Mediapart published a report alleging that Jordan Bardella, Marine Le Pen's protégé and her designated prime minister if she wins the 2027 presidential election, wrote severe anti-Semitic statements in the summer of 2013. Among other things, he allegedly wrote that "the banks are all owned by Jews," "the Jew must dominate other peoples, crush them and rob them," and that "a Zionist is necessarily a Jew." Bardella, then 17 and a member of the National Front party, vehemently denies the claims and calls them "a dirty tricks operation," stating he has initiated a libel suit. Le Pen expressed "full confidence" in Bardella, and senior members of the National Rally party rallied behind him, viewing the affair as an opening salvo in an effort to damage the campaign. The affair is particularly sensitive for Le Pen, who has worked for years to cleanse the party's image of her father's anti-Semitic legacy. Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, himself accused of anti-Semitism, condemned the remarks as "conspiratorial and baseless anti-Semitism."