Reaffirmation of party support

Marine Le Pen reaffirmed her support for Rassemblement National president Jordan Bardella on Saturday, 3 October 2026, following accusations that he authored antisemitic messages in 2013. In a statement provided to La Tribune Dimanche, the party's presidential candidate declared that she maintains total confidence in her party leader. The remarks represent Le Pen's first public response since investigative website Mediapart published technical authentication materials two days earlier on Thursday evening. Le Pen had initially defended Bardella on Monday after the first report, describing the accusations as political tricks and promising to dismantle what she termed crude manipulations. She also commented on Monday that Mediapart should put on a Kevlar suit. Her short declaration on Saturday followed two days of public silence from the party leadership.

“I have total confidence in Jordan.”

The Mediapart investigation and authentication

The controversy began on Monday when Mediapart published screenshots of private conversations sent on Facebook Messenger in 2013, attributing the account to Bardella when he was an activist in the party. The reported messages included statements claiming that banks are owned by Jewish people and asserting that Jewish people seek to dominate, crush, and steal from other populations. Mediapart published a second set of findings on Thursday evening, based on account data extracted from Meta under the supervision of a bailiff. According to the investigative outlet, autobiographical details within the user's conversations match Bardella's personal history, including his mother's Italian birth, an interview he gave to Le Parisien in 2013, and his unsuccessful entrance examination for Sciences Po.

Legal counteractions and denials

Bardella denied authorship of the messages, categorising the screenshots as crude fabrications containing statements he never made. Following the publication of the Meta extraction data on Thursday evening, Bardella instructed his legal counsel to initiate additional court proceedings against Mediapart. He announced a complaint for forgery and the use of forged documents, adding to a defamation lawsuit his lawyer had previously filed. Editorial commentators, including Atlantico director Jean-Sébastien Ferjou and Le Libre journal director Laurent Joffrin on Franceinfo, discussed the controversy and noted that voter response would depend on how party supporters view the technical dispute.

“I instructed my lawyer to file a complaint for forgery and use of forged documents, in addition to the complaint already filed for defamation.”

Electoral implications for the 2027 ticket

The controversy emerges as the Rassemblement National prepares for the 2027 presidential election, where Le Pen leads in first-round polling projections. Le Pen secured her fourth presidential candidacy after an appeals court confirmed her eligibility on 7 July 2026, despite upholding a conviction for misappropriation of public funds in the European Parliament assistants case. Under the party's election strategy, Bardella was designated as the substitute candidate in the event of any judicial impediment facing Le Pen, or as the putative prime minister if she wins office. The accusations arrive following visible tensions between Le Pen and Bardella since the confirmation of her presidential candidacy in July.