PARIS (AP) — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, her National Rally party and its allies closed ranks Tuesday behind her running mate in next year's presidential election, Jordan Bardella, in the face of media accusations that he made antisemitic remarks as a young party member.
The 31-year-old Bardella, who Le Pen says will be her prime minister if she wins the presidency in May, vigorously denied authorship of the comments about supposed Jewish banking monopolies and other antisemitic conspiracy theories that investigative website Mediapart attributed to him and published Monday.
It said they were written more than a decade ago. They included years when Bardella, now the National Rally president, was a teenage member of the party's predecessor, the National Front. It was founded by Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who repeatedly denied the Holocaust and was convicted multiple times of hate speech before his death in 2025.
Allegations of antisemitism touch a particular nerve at the National Rally because Le Pen has worked for years to distance herself from her father’s sulfurous legacy. To win the presidency, she must overcome obstacles that blocked his presidential ambitions. His associations with people who collaborated with France’s Nazi occupiers in World War II and his multiple convictions for antisemitism, discrimination and inciting racial violence made him anathema to many voters.
Sitting side by side, Marine Le Pen, Bardella and their ally Eric Ciotti on Tuesday used a previously scheduled gathering of their lawmakers to demonstrate unity.
They described Mediapart's allegations as the opening salvo of a supposed effort to undermine the National Rally and Le Pen as she campaigns to succeed President Emmanuel Macron, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term.
It's “the beginnings of an all-out war, of attempts to destabilize the presidential campaign, which — I’m telling you — will target us one after another,” Bardella said.
“We have both put on our Kevlar suits, because this is heavy stuff coming down on us,” Le Pen said. "This manipulation is about as subtle as a charcuterie convention.”
“We are not going to let them do this to us!” she added. To applause from their lawmakers, she expressed ”absolute confidence" in Bardella, who is particularly popular with young voters and has large followings on social media.
Mediapart said the comments it attributed to Bardella were drawn from private written exchanges but did not specify whether they were emails or another format. It said it independently authenticated the exchanges but did not detail how or say how it obtained them. Specializing in investigative journalism, Mediapart has become a leading news provider in France since its launch in 2008, claiming more than a quarter-million subscribers.
Bardella said he has launched a libel action against Mediapart's allegations, describing them as "a dirty-tricks operation.”
“These remarks are completely delusional. They are not mine,” he told broadcaster CNews.
At this early stage before the two-round election in April and May, Le Pen is widely regarded as a front-runner in the race to succeed Macron. Her campaign has been relatively free of major bumps since an appeals court in July cleared her path for a fourth run at the presidency, with a ruling that shortened a ban on seeking public office handed down to Le Pen for embezzling public funds.
Bardella, Le Pen's protégé, had been waiting in the wings to take her place as the party candidate if the original five-year ban had been upheld. On Tuesday, he described the antisemitism allegations as a plot that he alleged had been cooked up to thwart his chances had that scenario played out.
National Rally has courted Jewish voters by positioning itself as a bulwark against Islamic extremism in France and with Le Pen's sustained effort to dissociate herself from her father's legacy. In a process that researchers and critics of the party dubbed “de-demonization,” she expelled him in 2015 from the National Front and rebranded it in 2018.
Yonathan Arfi, who heads a French Jewish umbrella group, CRIF, said Bardella’s alleged comments, if substantiated, would represent “a stinging repudiation” of the sanitization strategy.
“How could a political figure who made such repugnant antisemitic remarks subsequently have risen to such positions of responsibility within a party that claims to have changed and to be fighting hatred of Jews?” Arfi posted on X.
FILE - French far-right Jordan Bardella applauds the speech of Marine Le Pen, on Sept.13, 2026 in Henin-Beaumont, northern France. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File)
FILE - Far-right party National Rally president Jordan Bardella and far-right leader Marine Le Pen attend a rally in Lievin, northern France, on July 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File)
FILE - French far right National Rally party president Jordan Bardella answers reporters following a meeting, on Monday, Oct. 6, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
MADRID (AP) — Spain’s government on Tuesday presented measures to address the country's housing crisis that has drawn tens of thousands of people to the streets in recent days after the eviction of an 87-year-old woman last week. It remains to be seen if they go far enough to appease protesters.
The coalition led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists announced the measures after four days of intense protests centered around an encampment in Puerta del Sol, Madrid's most iconic plaza. They were sparked by the eviction of María del Carmen Abascal, who was carried out on a stretcher from the apartment where she had lived for seven decades and has become widely known as simply “Maricarmen.”
The protests have yielded results for Abascal, whose lawyer Beatriz Duro said she had accepted a deal with the company that owns here apartment in the upscale Retiro neighborhood to return home.Abascal, who has in a hospital since she was removed from here apartment will return as soon as she is discharged, Duro said. The agreement limits her rent to 30% of her income, meaning she would not pay more than the 500 euros ($570) per month she paid previously.
The government's main decree extends protection against evictions for vulnerable Spaniards until 2030, regulates room rentals, imposes a new tax on seasonal rentals and bans “speculative real estate purchases by vulture funds” until 2028, Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez told reporters at the presidential palace. It remains unclear how such funds are classified or how large the tax will be, as the decree's full text has yet to be released.
It also offers tax breaks to landlords who rent to low-income tenants, offers interest-free loans to families buying their first home, and protects public housing and promotes its construction, Rodríguez added.
“This has been thanks to the citizen movement. To Maricarmen. To the thousands of people in the streets,” Spain's Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz wrote on social media.
Rising costs and a housing shortage are pricing many Spaniards out of the housing market, despite strong economic growth in Europe’s fourth-largest economy. The protesters have been demanding stronger protections for tenants, measures to combat fraud and a ban on evictions when alternative housing is unavailable.
Parliament has 30 days to ratify the measures, and the government wants to expedite the process and has called an extraordinary plenary session on housing for Friday. The government's coalition holds 152 of the chamber’s 350 seats, so it needs the support of smaller parties across the political spectrum to pass bills. Lack of parliamentary support in late July prevented the approval of similar measures.
The Madrid Tenants’ Union, the organizer of the protest, said it would remain cautious until it could review “the fine print” of the decree.
“The streets, this encampment and all the others currently across the country are engaging in a historic standoff with the government to push it to advance the right to housing through measures that had not been considered. And this continues,” said Alicia del Río, the union’s spokesperson.
The activists, planning more protests for the weekend, will decide later today whether to dismantle the encampment. The regional government, led by the conservative People’s Party, has asked the government delegate to clear the iconic square within 48 hours before taking the matter to court. The protesters have remained peaceful.
Smaller encampments have sprung up in other cities, from Seville and Málaga in the south to Santiago de Compostela in the north and Palma de Mallorca in the tourist-friendly Balearic Islands, drawing international attention to a long-running issue.
Asked about the situation on Monday, Pope Leo XIV said it underscored the need for political leaders to find solutions to the housing crisis affecting many communities.
“Maybe we have to insist that political leaders, authorities find a solution to this, because it’s obviously increasing and oftentimes we only react in the moment of an emergency,” he said, after admitting that he was not familiar with the case. “But we have to try to see what the systemic cause of the problem is and how to help.”
Spain has had a housing law in place since 2023 that regulates rents and protects tenants, as well as allowing rent caps in high-demand areas at the request of local governments.
Spanish media reported that Abascal’s father first rented the property in 1956 and she continued as the tenant after her parents died, during which time there was a rent cap. The building changed ownership in 2018, and Abascal was offered the opportunity to buy the apartment but could not afford it, according to the Madrid Tenants’ Union, which organized Saturday’s protest.
Urbagestión, an investment fund that later bought the unit, raised her monthly rent from 500 euros to 2,650 euros. It subsequently lowered the rent to 1,650 euros, which Abascal still could not afford on her pension, the union said.
The company didn't respond to emailed and phone requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Associated Press journalists Nicole Winfield in Rome and Joseph Wilson in Barcelona contributed.
Protesters camp during a protest at Sol Square following the eviction last Wednesday of 87-year-old Maricarmen as they demand stronger laws to protect renters in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Tourists take pictures of protesters camping during a protest at Sol Square following the eviction last Wednesday of 87-year-old Maricarmen as they demand stronger laws to protect renters in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Demonstrators camp during a protest at Sol Square following the eviction last Wednesday of 87-year-old Maricarmen as they demand stronger laws to protect renters in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Tourists gather in front of protesters camping during a protest at Sol Square following the eviction last Wednesday of 87-year-old Maricarmen as they demand stronger laws to protect renters in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Demonstrators camp during a protest at Sol Square following the eviction last Wednesday of 87-year-old Maricarmen as they demand stronger laws to protect renters in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
