Barring Le Pen from running for office clears the way for National Rally head Jordan Bardella

Record ID: 1987065

  • Title: Barring Le Pen from running for office clears the way for National Rally head Jordan Bardella
  • Date: 31st March 2025
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (MARCH 31, 2025) (REUTERS) FINNISH PRESIDENT ALEXANDER STUBB APPROACHING PODIUM (SOUNDBITE) (English) FINNISH PRESIDENT, ALEXANDER STUBB, SAYING: "I am yet to hear from anyone serious inside the U.S. administration, and I stress, anyone serious in the U.S. administration, saying that they are somehow withdrawing from NATO. What President Tru
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: Bardella Le Pen National Rally far-right
  • Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
  • City: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Europe,Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
  • Reuters ID: LVA007294131032025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement on Monday (March 31) and handed an immediate five-year ban from public office, a sentence that will bar her from running in the 2027 presidential race unless she successfully appeals beforehand.
    The ruling marks a catastrophic setback for Le Pen, the National Rally (RN) party chief and a front-runner in opinion polls on the 2027 contest and clears the way for the party president, Jordan Bardella, to becoming the far right presidential candidate.
    Bardella, who grew up in a social housing block in the impoverished outskirts of Paris, has risen quickly through the party ranks. In 2019, he led its campaign for European elections, when it took the top spot just ahead of Macron's centrist party.
    In 2022, Bardella won nearly 85% of party members' votes and became the new president of the National Rally, succeeding the figure party Marine Le Pen in the post.
    A clean-cut boxing enthusiast, Bardella has become one of Le Pen's most recognised lieutenants in French media. His quick wit and brutal soundbites have made him a formidable opponent for Macron's ministers and lawmakers on TV shows.
    Bardella, always smartly turned out in suit and tie, has embraced Le Pen's strategy of seeking to convince voters that the party founded by her father Jean-Marie, who was convicted several times for incitement to racial hatred, has moved towards the conservative mainstream and is now fit to govern.
    (Production: Michaela Cabrera)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2025. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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