PARIS (AP) — If a French appeals court on Tuesday prevents Marine Le Pen from making what would be her fourth and likely strongest tilt for the country's presidency, she has groomed a replacement who has already started to try on her mantle for size.
But Jordan Bardella is no carbon copy of the anti-immigration, populist leader who got closer than ever to taking the reins of Europe's largest country in the last of her three previous presidential campaigns and has steered her party's growth in popularity.
The most obvious difference and possibly the most important is that Bardella isn't called Le Pen.
That name is anathema for a large number of French voters, particularly on the left, because Marine Le Pen inherited it — and the party that he founded — from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen. His opponents loathed his far-right politics and multiple law-breaking outrages, including Holocaust denial.
If the appeals court ruling on Tuesday bars Le Pen from next year's election to replace two-term President Emmanuel Macron, who constitutionally cannot stand again, or prompts her to step aside for Bardella, then voters will assess how the two National Rally figures compare.
Here's a more detailed look at differences and similarities between Le Pen, the mentor, and Bardella, the acolyte who's been working to become more of his own man:
Bardella is the president of Le Pen's National Rally, which was called the National Front when Jean-Marie Le Pen founded it in 1972.
As party president, Bardella has vigorously championed its anti-immigration platform, speaking of a France that he says is being overwhelmed by immigration from Africa in particular and with “many people who today no longer recognize the France that they loved.”
Bardella has adopted a more business-friendly tone in efforts to broaden the party's appeal among entrepreneurs and wealthy conservative voters, while Le Pen traditionally focuses on purchasing power and state intervention, themes that resonate more with working-class voters.
Le Pen handed over the party leadership to Bardella in 2022, after she'd rebranded the party and worked for years to make it more palatable for voters. She did that by shifting away from her father, eventually kicking him out of the party entirely. She also retreated from some of her most divisive proposed policies for France, including that it withdraw from the European Union and restore the franc as its official currency, instead of the shared euro.
It’s been the National Rally since 2018 and the largest single party in parliament’s National Assembly since 2024.
Not having the baggage that comes with the Le Pen name could be an asset for Bardella, says Luc Rouban, a senior researcher at Paris’ Sciences Po school of political sciences who studies the party. “Symbolically, it would signal a break with the legacy of the old National Front, of Jean-Marie Le Pen.”
That heritage has been a vulnerability for Le Pen, with critics and historians never allowing her to forget her polarizing father's associations with people who collaborated with France's Nazi occupiers in World II and his hate-speech convictions.
In an election campaign, that mud might not stick so well on Bardella, the party's first leader not called Le Pen.
“Jean-Marie Le Pen’s legacy is a very heavy burden to carry,” Rouban said. “If you move beyond the Le Pen family, you’re entering different territory.”
Le Pen, 57, says that 30-year-old Bardella's age is a plus. “We are complementary,” she said in a recent interview. “I have a certain experience, but Jordan has an absolutely incredible dynamism; he has the strength and energy of his youth.”
Bardella leverages social media more effectively, with nearly double her following on Instagram and his 2.3 million TikTok followers outpacing Le Pen's 1.5 million.
He might be better equipped than she is to mobilize Gen Z. Voters aged 18 to 29 have increasingly disengaged from national elections through the last five presidential cycles. According to France's national statistics agency, only 17% of them cast ballots in all elections in 2022, when Macron beat Le Pen in the presidential knockout round for a second time. That's sharply down from 31% who voted systematically in 2002.
Le Pen was born into politics. Her father served as a lawmaker from 1956 to 1962, before the birth of his youngest daughter in 1968, a year roiled by protests and strikes, with barricades on Paris streets. She joined the National Front as a teenager. After getting a law degree, Le Pen first stood as an FN candidate at just 24 years old for legislative elections in 1993.
Bardella has cut his teeth as a lawmaker in the European Parliament but he lacks her breadth of experience. Some analysts say that could make it harder for him to woo older voters.
His opponents and some experts speculate that Bardella could falter in the rough and tumble of what would be his first presidential election campaign.
But Victor Mallet, author of “Far-Right France: Le Pen, Bardella and the Future of Europe,” suggests that National Rally opponents shouldn't be too sure of that.
“A lot of people thought the same thing about Donald Trump,” he said. “They thought, you know, this guy has no experience of government, his policies don’t make any sense, and he was elected twice.”
Associated Press journalists Sylvie Corbet and Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris contributed to this report.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, left, accompanied by far-right party National Rally president Jordan Bardella, center, speaks during a rally in Lievin, northern France, Saturday, July 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
Far-right party National Rally president Jordan Bardella speaks during a rally in Lievin, northern France, Saturday, July 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
Far-right party National Rally president Jordan Bardella is embraced by far-right leader Marine Le Pen at a rally in Lievin, northern France, Saturday, July 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched waves of missiles and drones at Kyiv early Monday, killing at least 11 people in an attack that exposed widening gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses, local authorities said.
All of the ballistic missiles launched by Russia struck their targets, underscoring Kyiv’s worsening shortage of Patriot interceptor missiles. The attack came hours after Ukraine’s president warned that a large-scale attack was imminent.
A further 60 people were wounded, according to local officials, as emergency workers combed through rubble looking for survivors at residential high-rise buildings in two locations that suffered direct hits.
The new attack came days after a Russian strike killed 31 people in the capital on Thursday, the deadliest for the capital this year. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the bombardment was retaliation for Ukraine’s recent long-range strikes, which have caused severe fuel shortages and pressured President Vladimir Putin.
More than four years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine’s advances in drone technology have given it an edge in recent months, analysts and Western officials say. Strikes on supply routes behind the front line have stripped the Russian army of momentum on the battlefield, they say, slowing its advance and driving up the cost.
But Russia is now exploiting a different kind of momentum: vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s air defenses, which remain heavily reliant on the U.S. Patriot systems to intercept ballistic missiles it can rarely shoot down any other way. The war in the Middle East has strained the global supply of Patriot interceptors, already produced in limited numbers — a shortage now most of all being felt in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia fired hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at the country overnight, targeting mainly Kyiv, and 29 ballistic missiles that were launched struck their targets, underscoring how little Ukraine can do to stop them.
“To intercept ballistics, we need the means for interception,” Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said on national television, commenting on the attack. “Russians are certainly using the fact that there is a serious deficit of interceptor missiles now, in Ukraine and the world.”
Ahead of a NATO summit in Ankara, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X that Ukrainian forces had performed well against drones and cruise missiles but not against Russian ballistic missiles — a shortfall he blamed on insufficient interceptor supplies. He urged U.S. and European partners to leave the summit with strong decisions to bolster Ukraine’s air defense and protect civilian lives.
“As long as Patriot missiles remain in our allies’ stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep “vanquishing” residential buildings. The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror,” he said in a statement following the attack.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attack targeted weapons factories in Kyiv, including sites it said produce drones, sea drones, armored vehicles and missiles, as well as facilities that repair air defense systems and fuel and energy infrastructure in the city and surrounding region. The claims could not be independently verified.
Russia’s aerial attacks on Ukraine have repeatedly hit civilian areas. More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, according to the United Nations.
“These are residential buildings. Places where people slept and lived their ordinary lives,” said Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s City Military Administration, in a post on Telegram.
A residential building in the Podilskyi district partially collapsed, he said. In the Darnytsia district, several multistory buildings were damaged and people were believed to be trapped under the rubble.
Khrystyna Piatetska, 20, a resident of Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district, said she began screaming after the first strike, which was followed by a second blast that blew out the windows in her apartment building.
The lights went out, the smell of burning filled the air and the stairwell was thick with smoke, she said.
“When we were leaving the building, bodies were lying there,” Piatetska said. “When we got downstairs, cars started exploding, and we came out from under the rubble straight into the fire.”
Halina Ivanivna, a 61-year-old Kyiv resident, said she woke to the sound of the first strike at around 2 a.m. Moments later, her apartment building began to collapse around her.
“Everything was falling down,” she said. Water poured through the building as smoke filled the air while emergency crews rushed to evacuate residents.
About five minutes after the initial impact, a second strike hit, she said.
Meanwhile, an energy provider in Russia-occupied Crimea reported a blackout across the peninsula due to “external impact.” The Moscow-appointed head of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said Ukrainian attacks cut power supplies to the city early Monday, but it was later restored using backup equipment.
Russia's Yaroslavl region Gov. Mikhail Yavrayev said two people were wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack on the city of the same name. He said over 70 Ukrainian drones were downed as they attacked the city. Yavrayev didn’t say if any facilities were damaged, but Astra online news outlet said the attack targeted an oil refinery in the city, causing a fire.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 519 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
A woman carries her cat out of a damaged multistory apartment building following a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Local residents walk amid debris following a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Local residents look out of the balcony at a building damaged by Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Emergency workers carry an injured person following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
Rescuers work the scene of a building damaged by Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Rescuers work the scene of a building damaged by Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
The damaged apartment interior in the ruined building following Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Rescuers work the scene of a building damaged by Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Rescuers work the scene of a building damaged by Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
