Every election campaign has its champion of evasion. During the 2022 presidential election, Emmanuel Macron was widely criticized for hiding behind the war in Ukraine to avoid entering the electoral arena, saying as little as possible about his plans and vision because this risked unbalancing his "at the same time" refrain and causing him to lose voters on both sides. At the time, his strategy paid off: The incumbent president won re-election by using his office to remain above the fray. The two years that followed, however, showed just how costly a botched campaign can be in terms of loss of momentum and rising protests.
This time, the man practicing evasion is Jordan Bardella. The chair of the Rassemblement National (RN, far right) is also his party's top candidate in the European elections on June 9. And he is making no attempt to lend credibility to his agenda, which consists of being both for and against: Advocating a "Europe of the nations" but wanting to turn Frontex into an agency to combat illegal immigration. Denying that he is in any way subservient to Vladimir Putin's Russia but refusing to vote in the European Parliament for the slightest aid to Ukraine.
Ever since he launched his campaign in Marseille on March 3, Bardella has behaved as if saying as little as possible about the European issue was the best way of avoiding problems.
On three occasions, he refused to debate with his opponents. On Thursday, April 25, he left a press conference he had called to counter Macron's speech without taking part in a question-and-answer session with journalists, on the pretext that the president had not deigned to do so either. A few days later, he cited a health problem to erase the bad impression left by the incident.
Having become the king of dodging, Bardella also practices the art of discarding. We still don't know what he intends to do with his cumbersome ally in the European Parliament, the AfD, whose lead candidate is in legal trouble for his ties to China and Russia. For someone who claims to want to govern the country one day, there's nothing very reassuring here; for someone who claims to respect the people, there's nothing very engaging either.
Anti-Macron referendum
We could put Bardella's evasiveness down to his youth. At 28, you can't master everything, and that's normal: From "no to the euro" to "yes but," the RN's European doctrine has fluctuated so much in recent years that it's easy to get confused. But one could just as easily invoke hubris, the feeling of omnipotence that seizes a politician sooner or later and leads them to believe they are above the rest. Having become a first-time candidate at the age of 23, party leader at 25, and a star on TikTok with over a million followers, the RN's young leader has a few reasons to have a big ego, but that's not it either.
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