France’s hard right is secretly courting the elite

The centre court at Roland Garros, home to the French tennis open, is usually the setting for sporting combat. In late August, however, the clay court was transformed into a stage for a different contest: a debate between political leaders, hosted by MEDEF, the employers’ federation. Among the six participants laying out their case to the country’s grands patrons was the rising star of the hard-right National Rally (RN): its party president, Jordan Bardella (pictured).

To the surprise of some in the audience, used to the protectionist language of the party leader, Marine Le Pen, Mr Bardella sounded a distinctly pro-business note. Dressed in a sharp suit and tie, he urged France to learn to love those “who create, who innovate, who take risks”. The country, he said, has “too many norms, too many taxes” that thwart enterprise. “We need more freedom for business bosses.”

Shortly after, in a letter to business chiefs, Mr Bardella sought to calm worries over his party’s decision to vote against François Bayrou’s government in a parliamentary vote of confidence on September 8th. The RN, he wrote, would be the “real guarantor of economic stability”. He pledged €100bn ($118bn) of budget savings, although did not specify whether these would be spread over five years.

Ms Le Pen’s party, descended from the extremist, antisemitic and xenophobic party co-founded by her father, Jean-Marie, is on a campaign to court the elite. Her father was a social pariah. Not long ago Ms Le Pen and Mr Bardella were rarely glimpsed in polite society. Today their presence has become, if not commonplace, then less remarkable. In 2023 Mr Bardella was invited to speak at HEC, a leading Paris business school. In recent months quiet individual meetings have been arranged between Mr Bardella and certain top business bosses. According to two sources, Mr Bardella met Vincent Bolloré, an industrial magnate, before the summer; his office declined to comment. In July, in a startling sign of mainstreaming, Mr Bardella was received by Nicolas Sarkozy, a centre-right ex-president, at his offices in Paris.

Such outreach, which works in both directions, has taken time, and seldom occurs directly. The RN has a small team that acts as intermediaries. One central figure is Sébastien Chenu, an RN deputy and a party vice-president, who hails originally from the centre-right. His padded contact book, and more palatable political origins, make him a handy go-between.

After the RN came top in the first round of voting in snap parliamentary elections in June 2024, requests gathered pace. A year ago Mr Chenu was invited to a dinner by Philippe Villin, a Paris financier, at which Patrick Martin, the MEDEF boss, was also present. The RN deputy has also met Michel-Edouard Leclerc, head of a big supermarket chain. Invitations come not only from business but lawyers, bureaucrats, diplomats and others. “We’re submerged,” says Mr Chenu; “it doesn’t stop.”

France has strict campaign-finance rules and caps party donations at a tiny €7,500 per person a year. So these contacts are not about building war chests. For the RN, says Mr Chenu, the point is, rather, to “build bridges to those who do not necessarily share our ideas, but who we think need to get to know us as we are, not how they imagine us.”

To this end, Mr Bardella is the party’s chief asset. He neither carries the Le Pen name nor, at the age of just 30, is he old enough to be tainted directly by the party’s noxious past. With over 2m followers on TikTok, Mr Bardella is at ease with younger voters, and tops popularity polls. The party now wants him to charm the establishment, too. Mr Bardella could be propelled into power sooner than expected. A court has banned Ms Le Pen from running for electoral office with immediate effect, in a trial over European party-financing. She will learn next year whether that ruling is upheld on appeal. They have both agreed that, if it is, he will be the RN’s presidential candidate in 2027—or for prime minister if the party wins a snap election before then.

For French business, such a prospect is focusing minds. The young man is little-known, and for good reason. Elected RN president at the age of 27, having been hand-picked by Ms Le Pen, he has only ever worked in politics. Part of the interest in meeting him, says one business boss, is “to size up the beast”. More importantly, suggests another, it is to see whether he is “malleable”. Might a quiet word of caution in Mr Bardella’s ear now not help to temper his line? The point, as another business chief puts it, is “to try to make sure he is more like [Giorgia] Meloni than Le Pen”.

In some right-wing business circles Mr Bardella’s appeal goes further. Some bosses argue that the cordon sanitaire, which has traditionally kept the RN untouchable, is finished, and that only a united right can keep France from the hands of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left. This month Mr Sarkozy even suggested that the RN now belonged in the “republican arc”—the respectable democratic spectrum. Thierry Breton, an ex-European commissioner and businessman, called for the RN to be asked to form a government. It is striking that Mr Bolloré, whose politics are on the Catholic right, now controls a host of right-wing media, including CNews, a TV channel dubbed “the French Fox News”.

Mr Bardella’s discourse may have some appeal. But it has not calmed all boardroom worries, and the idea of the RN in power still appals many. The party has provided few details on its promised budget savings. It wants earlier retirement for those who start work young, and a new “financial fortune” tax to replace the current mansion tax. The game of seduction is on. But it has not been won yet. ■