PARIS (AP) — He wears his suits like armor, smiles like a pop star and boasts more than 2 million followers on TikTok. At just 29, Jordan Bardella has become the fresh-faced figurehead of France’s National Rally party and is now poised to inherit one of the most electorally successful far-right machines in Europe.
But behind the image of youthful confidence lies a question increasingly whispered by allies and adversaries alike: Can Bardella, who has no experience in government, really lead?
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FILE - Jordan Bardella, lead candidate of the French far right National Rally for the upcoming European elections, speaks during a meeting on June 2, 2024, in Paris. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla, File)
FILE - Acting president of the far-right National Rally party Jordan Bardella arrives at a TV studio, April 20, 2022, in La Plaine-Saint-Denis, outside of Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)
FILE - Leader of France's National Rally (RN) Jordan Bardella, center, listens to Israeli officer Ethan Dana during a visit to a memorial for victims and hostages of the 2023 Hamas attacks, near kibbutz Re'im in southern Israel, Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (Jack Guez/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Leader of the French far-right National Rally Marine Le Pen, left, and Jordan Bardella, lead candidate of the party for the upcoming European election, right, are seen during a political meeting on June 2, 2024, in Paris. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla, File)
FILE - French Far-right party National Rally president Jordan Bardella delivers a speech at a meeting in Marseille, southern France, Sunday, March 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)
FILE - French far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen, center, and President Jordan Bardella salute supporters at a meeting in Marseille, southern France, March 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)
FILE - Jordan Bardella, lead candidate of the French far right National Rally for the upcoming European elections, poses before a debate at the French state owned TV channel France 2 in Aubervilliers, near Paris, on June 4, 2024. (Stephane de Sakutin, Pool via AP, File)
The presidential ambitions of Bardella's mentor, Marine Le Pen, could be over after a French court convicted her of embezzling European Union funds and barred her from holding office for five years. That means Bardella finds himself the last man standing atop the largest party in the French National Assembly. But having the spotlight doesn’t mean he commands the stage.
Critics call him Le Pen’s puppet. Le Pen calls him her asset.
On Monday night, she seemed to suggest the moment of reckoning might be approaching sooner than expected.
“I hope we won’t have to use that asset sooner than necessary,” she told the TF1 television network.
Bardella was born in 1995 in the gritty suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis — a place more often in headlines for gang violence and poverty than political promise. He grew up in public housing, the son of Italian and Algerian heritage. His father ran a vending machine business. His family scraped together enough to send him to a semi-private Catholic school. He never finished university.
But ambition moved faster than education. At 17, he joined the National Rally — then still known as the National Front, a party shunned by polite society and defined by the legacy of Jean-Marie Le Pen. For most, it was a dead end. For Bardella, it was a launchpad.
By 23, he was a member of the European Parliament. By 26, Marine Le Pen had made him party president — the first person outside the Le Pen family to lead the far-right movement in its half-century history. It was a symbolic handover, but also a calculated move to modernize a brand long stained by racism and antisemitism.
“Jordan Bardella is the creation of Marine Le Pen,” said Cécile Alduy, a Stanford University professor and expert on the French far right. “He has been made by her and is extremely loyal.”
He quickly became the party’s face: camera-ready, uncontroversial and fluent in the aesthetics of modern politics. While Le Pen kept hold of the ideological reins, Bardella toured the country as the youthful ambassador of a rebranded movement.
Their alliance was once pitched as a kind of American-style ticket — she for president, he for prime minister. But that balance no longer holds. With Le Pen sidelined, Bardella is no longer the backup.
The problem is, he was never meant to lead.
Bardella has never held national office. He’s never run a ministry. But he has built a following. With an outsized social media presence and a slick, stage-managed image, he has become a star among young voters, offering a set of politics that looks fresh, even when the message is familiar.
His content is clean, curated and relentlessly on message. Campaign videos feature sharp suits, barbed quips at President Emmanuel Macron and selfie lines at rally stops. He doesn’t improvise. He doesn’t deviate.
That discipline has helped broaden the National Rally’s appeal, especially in the aftermath of Macron’s defeat in the 2024 European elections. Bardella was the one who demanded Macron dissolve Parliament. When Macron agreed, Bardella’s status shifted from party mascot to potential prime minister.
Yet the more visible he becomes, the more his limitations show.
Last week, Bardella traveled to Israel in a bid to bolster his image on the world stage. It backfired. Major Jewish organizations boycotted the event he attended. Israeli President Isaac Herzog stayed away. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered only a brief, formal handshake.
The French press called the visit a reputational flop — a trip meant to signal international stature that ended up highlighting its absence. Bardella may wear the suit, but many say he hasn’t yet grown into it.
At home, his platform is standard fare for the far right: stricter immigration laws, fewer social benefits for noncitizens and limits on dual nationals holding sensitive public jobs. He’s pledged lower energy taxes, a reversal of Macron’s pension reform and a ban on mobile phones in high schools.
Abroad, he’s attempted to sound more statesmanlike, voicing support for arming Ukraine, labeling Russia a “multidimensional threat” and calling for France to eventually exit NATO’s integrated command, though not while war rages in Europe.
It’s a program designed to reassure nervous voters while keeping the movement’s nationalist core intact.
“He has a clean slate and comes with no baggage of the past,” Alduy said.
But the real question isn’t about his past. It’s whether he’s ready for what comes next.
For now, Bardella walks a fine line as the protégé who was suddenly promoted, the frontman who's trying to become the act.
His strength lies in presentation. The suit, the smile, the soundbites — they’re all in place. His weakness is what lies behind that performance. That’s still in question.
The French press has criticized Bardella for failing to prepare his party for real power. National Rally figures have said his leadership has focused more on personal promotion than on collective progress, more about boosting his own image than caring about the party or building a serious governing force.
Others have linked him to a lack of structure and professionalism inside the party. Projects he once promised — from recruiting outside talent to strengthening local networks — have stalled. Key voices say the party is too centralized, too top-down and too afraid to challenge its young leader.
Whether Bardella becomes the future of French politics or just its most polished understudy will depend not on Marine Le Pen but on whether he can become more than her invention.
FILE - Jordan Bardella, lead candidate of the French far right National Rally for the upcoming European elections, speaks during a meeting on June 2, 2024, in Paris. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla, File)
FILE - Acting president of the far-right National Rally party Jordan Bardella arrives at a TV studio, April 20, 2022, in La Plaine-Saint-Denis, outside of Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)
FILE - Leader of France's National Rally (RN) Jordan Bardella, center, listens to Israeli officer Ethan Dana during a visit to a memorial for victims and hostages of the 2023 Hamas attacks, near kibbutz Re'im in southern Israel, Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (Jack Guez/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Leader of the French far-right National Rally Marine Le Pen, left, and Jordan Bardella, lead candidate of the party for the upcoming European election, right, are seen during a political meeting on June 2, 2024, in Paris. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla, File)
FILE - French Far-right party National Rally president Jordan Bardella delivers a speech at a meeting in Marseille, southern France, Sunday, March 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)
FILE - French far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen, center, and President Jordan Bardella salute supporters at a meeting in Marseille, southern France, March 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)
FILE - Jordan Bardella, lead candidate of the French far right National Rally for the upcoming European elections, poses before a debate at the French state owned TV channel France 2 in Aubervilliers, near Paris, on June 4, 2024. (Stephane de Sakutin, Pool via AP, File)
President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to invoke the Insurrection Act to justify deploying troops as protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement persist in Minneapolis.
Trump made the threat to “quickly put an end to the travesty” after a federal officer shot a man in the leg while being attacked with a shovel and broom handle on Wednesday. The incident further heightened the sense of fear and anger radiating across the city a week after an immigration agent fatally shot a woman in the head.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the rarely used federal law to deploy the U.S. military or federalize the National Guard for domestic law enforcement, over the objections of state governors.
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The governor of Maine and the mayors of its two largest cities acknowledged widespread speculation that ICE enforcement actions are imminent in the state, which is home to large immigrant communities from Somalia and other African nations.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills said aggressive enforcement actions that undermine civil rights are “not welcome” in the state. Mills, the mayors of Portland and Lewiston and Maine’s largest school district all acknowledged that the possibility of ICE enforcement has created a nervous atmosphere in Maine.
“But if they come here, I want any federal agents — and the president of the United States — to know what this state stands for: We stand for the rule of law. We oppose violence. We stand for peaceful protest. We stand for compassion, for integrity and justice,” Mills said in video released Wednesday.
Democrats across the country are proposing state law changes to rein in federal immigration officers and protect the public following the shooting death of a protester in Minneapolis and the wounding of two people in Portland, Oregon.
Many of the measures have been proposed in some form for years in Democratic-led states, but their momentum is growing as legislatures return to work amid President Donald Trump’s national immigration crackdown following the killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis. Republicans are pushing back, blaming protesters for impeding enforcement of immigration laws.
When Trump entered office, immigration was among his strongest issues. An AP-NORC Poll published Thursday suggests that it has since faded, a troubling sign for Trump who campaigned on crackdowns to illegal immigration.
Just 38% of U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling immigration, down from 49% at the start of his second term. The most recent poll was conducted January 8-11, shortly after the death of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.
There are still signs that Americans give Trump some leeway on immigration issues. Nearly half of Americans — 45% — say Trump has “helped” immigration and border security in his second term.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote Thursday on social media, “Motor Tanker Veronica had previously passed through Venezuelan waters, and was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean.”
The Veronica is the sixth tanker seized by U.S. forces as the Trump administration moves to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s oil products, and the fourth since the U.S. ouster of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid almost two weeks ago.
Noem wrote that the raid was carried out with “close coordination with our colleagues” in the military as well as the State and Justice departments.
“Our heroic Coast Guard men and women once again ensured a flawlessly executed operation, in accordance with international law,” Noem added.
The Associated Press has reached out to the offices of Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for comment on Trump’s latest threat to invoke the Insurrection Act.
During a televised speech before the latest shooting, Walz described Minnesota as being in chaos, saying what’s happening in the state “defies belief.”
“Let’s be very, very clear, this long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” he said. “Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
Threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and send troops to Minneapolis, Trump noted that presidents have used the 19th century law many times. This is true — but they haven’t necessarily done it in the circumstances found in Minneapolis, where the tensions have arisen from Trump already sending federal authorities into the city.
In modern times, the act has been used to mobilize troops to help local authorities or to ensure a federal court order is carried out.
The law was last used in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush to help quell riots in Los Angeles after local officials asked for the assistance. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson all invoked it during the Civil Rights Movement to help enforce desegregation orders in Southern states where state and local governments were resisting.
A 1964 Justice Department memo said the act can apply in three circumstances: when a state requests help, when deployment is needed to enforce a federal court order, or when “state and local law enforcement have completely broken down.”
In a statement describing the events that led to Wednesday’s shooting, Homeland Security said federal law enforcement officers stopped a person from Venezuela who was in the U.S. illegally. The person drove away and crashed into a parked car before taking off on foot, DHS said.
After officers reached the person, two other people arrived from a nearby apartment and all three started attacking the officer, according to DHS.
“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life,” DHS said.
The two people who came out of the apartment are in custody, it said.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s account of what happened largely echoed that of Homeland Security. O’Hara said the man shot was in the hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.
Jacob Frey spoke Wednesday night after federal officers wearing gas masks and helmets fired tear gas into a small crowd while protesters threw rocks and shot fireworks.
“This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in and at the same time we are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to maintain order,” he said.
Frey described a federal force that is five times as big as the city’s 600-officer police force and has “invaded” the city, scaring and angering residents, some of whom want the officers to “fight ICE agents.”
The Department of Homeland Security says it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December and is vowing to not back down.
Trump made the threat Thursday after a federal officer trying to make an arrest shot a man in the leg Wednesday after being attacked with a shovel and broom handle. The incident further heightened the sense of fear and anger radiating across the city a week after an immigration agent fatally shot a woman in the head.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the rarely used federal law to deploy the U.S. military or federalize the National Guard for domestic law enforcement, over the objections of state governors.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump said in social media post.
▶ Read more about Trump’s latest threats to Minnesota
An AP-NORC poll from January found that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of Trump’s performance as president. That’s virtually unchanged from March 2025, shortly after he took office for the second time.
The new poll also shows subtle signs of vulnerability for Trump, mainly regarding the economy and immigration.
Two senators from opposite parties are joining forces in a renewed push to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, an effort that has broad public support but has repeatedly stalled on Capitol Hill.
Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Republican Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida on Thursday plan to introduce legislation, first shared with The Associated Press, that would bar lawmakers and their immediate family members from trading or owning individual stocks.
It’s the latest in a flurry of proposals in the House and the Senate to limit stock trading in Congress, lending bipartisan momentum to the issue. But the sheer number of proposals has clouded the path forward. Republican leaders in the House are pushing their own bill on stock ownership, an alternative that critics have dismissed as watered down.
▶ Read more about the cross-party effort
Senate Republicans voted to dismiss a war powers resolution Wednesday that would have limited Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks on Venezuela after two GOP senators reversed course on supporting the legislation.
Trump put intense pressure on five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week and ultimately prevailed in heading off passage of the legislation. Two of the Republicans — Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana — flipped under the pressure.
Vice President JD Vance had to break the 50-50 deadlock in the Senate on a Republican motion to dismiss the bill.
The outcome of the high-profile vote demonstrated how Trump still has command over much of the Republican conference, yet the razor-thin vote tally also showed the growing concern on Capitol Hill over the president’s aggressive foreign policy ambitions.
▶ Read more about the war powers vote
While President Donald Trump says he’ll take action on Greenland whether its people “ like it or not, ” his newly handpicked U.S. special envoy is setting off on his own approach.
Gov. Jeff Landry, appointed as envoy in December, said he is not interested in meeting diplomats. The Republican has not visited the Arctic island and did not attend Wednesday’s meeting at the White House that included Danish officials, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. However, the governor was scheduled to travel to Washington on Thursday and Friday for meetings that include the topic of Greenland, Landry’s spokesperson Kate Kelly said.
▶ Read more about Landry 's new role
Law enforcement officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
FILE - Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gestures to supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, file)
FILE - President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
