Jordan Bardella Sues Mediapart Over Alleged Antisemitic Messages
Jordan Bardella filed a defamation lawsuit against Mediapart after the outlet published alleged antisemitic messages he wrote as a minor.
National Rally leader Jordan Bardella filed a defamation lawsuit against the investigative website Mediapart following a report alleging he wrote antisemitic and conspiratorial messages between 2013 and 2015. The report claims that Bardella, then a minor, wrote in private chats that Jews seek to rob and crush other peoples and that all banks are owned by Jews.
Bardella dismissed the allegations as blatant forgeries and a smear campaign by the activist press designed to destabilize the party's presidential campaign. Mediapart maintains that it independently authenticated the messages and utilized accounts from former colleagues to verify the claims.
Marine Le Pen, the presidential frontrunner and ally of Bardella, characterized the report as a manipulation and a dirty trick. The controversy arrives as the National Rally experiences significant political momentum, including a recent breakthrough in the Senate where it secured 14 seats to form a faction for the first time.
Government officials and Jewish community leaders condemned the alleged remarks. Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot stated that antisemitism is the true face of the far right, while Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, said the violence of the remarks could not be explained away by youth.
