WARSAW — Jordan Bardella is shopping for allies.
As he prepares for a potential run for the French presidency next year, the leader of the far-right National Rally used a trip to Poland this week to court nationalist and conservative partners to join him in trying to shape the EU to his liking.
“This visit is a key step in a series of European trips,” Bardella said during a press conference at the Polish parliament Thursday. He said he had had a “very fruitful” meeting with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, with whom he “discussed a number of topics and exchanged views on the current direction of Europe.”
Nawrocki is embroiled in a bitter battle with pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who holds a more powerful post. They are gearing up for next year’s crucial parliamentary election, where the nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) hopes to return to power, possibly in coalition with other right-wing parties.
In an exclusive interview ahead of the trip, Bardella told POLITICO he was meeting PiS leaders to “prepare for the Europe of tomorrow.”
Bardella’s trip comes after the National Rally lost its most high-profile ally in the EU, when former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was defeated at the polls earlier this year. Bardella is now looking to forge new ties with other right-wing leaders, including Nawrocki and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — while his mentor Marine Le Pen is consoling Orbán in Brussels.
Relations between the National Rally and PiS have historically been complicated. While the Poles are hardliners when it comes to Russia, the French far right has, in the past, been friendly with the Kremlin.
Bardella was careful on the trip not to neglect his official Polish ally, the smaller Confederation Freedom and Independence party, which sits with the National Rally in the European Parliament. The French far-right politician stood alongside the party’s leader, Krzysztof Bosak, during a memorial ceremony Thursday morning at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw.
Still, he made clear ahead of the trip that he was looking for other partners.
“Our ambition is to think big and to build a new European architecture capable of addressing the major challenges of the 21st century — and we will certainly need the largest group possible,” he told POLITICO in the interview.
Bardella will find out if he is his party’s presidential candidate on July 7, when a French appeals court decides whether to uphold his mentor Marine Le Pen’s convictions for embezzlement and the five-year election ban that comes with it. Polls have him winning the election’s first round, and early polls also show him beating other contenders in the runoff, though only narrowly against centrist candidates.
‘Common challenges’
For years, PiS held the National Rally in contempt for its closeness to Russia — a serious liability in a country still scarred by Soviet domination and deeply mistrustful of anybody cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We have as much in common with Ms. Le Pen as with Mr. Putin,” the party’s leader Jarosław Kaczyński quipped in 2017.
Relations warmed up under former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who hosted Le Pen for dinner in Warsaw in 2021, and Bardella himself has made a point of distancing himself from pro-Kremlin figures in his party. He is expected to meet with Kaczyński and other party figures on Friday.
“Poland and France share many common challenges, as well as numerous opportunities for cooperation,” Nawrocki’s chief of staff, Paweł Szefernaker, posted on X after the Polish president met with Bardella. “It was a very good conversation about the future of Europe, security, and the role of sovereign states in the European community.”
Bardella has been navigating a delicate balancing act over the past few months, trying to build bridges with right-wing and conservative groups without reneging on his radical EU agenda.
He recently said that he sees “common ground” with Germany’s conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz on easing regulation and curbing migration, in an apparent bid to signal to voters that he can manage relations with France’s more mainstream partners in the EU. To win the 2027 presidential election, he will need to not only fire up his base but also reassure economically conservative voters who don’t share his defiance toward Brussels.
After visiting the Warsaw offices of the EU’s border agency Frontex, Bardella framed the recent adoption of the EU’s Returns Regulation in the European Parliament as a strategic win for his party. The National Rally was initially critical of the bill, which gives countries more latitude to deport migrants whose asylum requests have been denied, but ultimately backed the measure.
“We are building ties with several Polish political parties,” Bardella said. “Some sit alongside us in the European Parliament, while others are part of Giorgia Meloni’s conservative group.”
He added he was seeking to build what he described as the Europe of tomorrow. “Many in the European Union will be allies,” he added. “Including those one doesn’t suspect.”
France’s far-right leader Jordan Bardella tours Poland in search for new allies
Source: Viral Showbiz Pinay
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