France's political landscape is shifting, with the center crumbling and the RN seen as the party to boost purchasing power and cut immigration, potentially paving the way for Bardella's ascent to power.
Marine Le Pen is changing tack -- and not for the first time. After a combative and fiery reaction to her five-year election ban over an embezzlement case last year, the French far-right leader is taking a more conciliatory approach in her appeal.
This shift may cut little ice with her judges but she can no doubt afford to be a little more magnanimous. Her troubles haven't hurt her Rassemblement National party in the slightest, and she appears to have a ready-made heir. US President Donald Trump and his MAGA acolytes will be following the fortunes of their nationalist fellow traveler closely at a critical political moment for France and Europe. They'll barely be able to contain their glee.
Of course, there are high personal stakes for Le Pen after years spent dragging a movement forged by her xenophobic, eyepatch-toting father into the political mainstream. She claims the RN was unaware it was committing an offense when hiring aides using contracts deemed "fake." But if the ban stands, it would likely end her chances of succeeding Emmanuel Macron as president in 2027. Polls suggest the French don't see her punishment as a leftist "witch hunt" (Trump's words, via social media.)
Ironically, the RN may no longer need the hardened campaigner Le Pen to win. While Macron has proven unable to groom a successor to carry on his centrist pro-Europe, pro-business agenda, Le Pen has lined up dauphin Jordan Bardella to take over if she's forced to step back.
And French voters' disillusionment and distrust of the establishment is off the charts, as Macron's fifth prime minister in less than two years struggles to pass a budget and the economy stagnates. Power is ebbing from the Elysee Palace, with the once-godlike presidential "non" incapable of saving French farmers from a hated Mercosur trade deal with Latin America. The center is crumbling, and the RN is seen as the party to boost purchasing power and cut immigration.
Bardella is even more popular than Le Pen, with approval ratings of around 38%. And he's started cultivating a more pro-business offering by shunning more statist ideas on the economy and eyeing a broad right-wing coalition. This is similar to the wooing of financial elites by Italy's Giorgia Meloni and Britain's Nigel Farage with promises of lower tax and less regulation, although financial markets will be more skeptical of RN pledges given its hostility to the European Union and pension reform.
"There is no anointed politician or heir apparent" in the center who is as "charismatic and popular as either Le Pen or Bardella," says Sciences Po university professor Kevin Arceneaux, who flags the inability of Macron and his ilk to respond to voters on issues like immigration and nationhood.
Le Pen's legal appeal could either kickstart Bardella's ascent to a position of power at the heart of Europe, or let her finish the job she started. Either way, France may be on a course that MAGA godfather Steve Bannon thinks will "kill the European Union." It's too soon to know how the 30-year-old Bardella would perform in a presidential campaign. He lacks experience, dropped out of university and would need to sway an increasingly aged electorate.
Macron's entourage snootily calls Bardella "Basic Fit," after a chain of low-cost gyms. But his ratings have risen as centrist pin-up Edouard Philippe's have fallen. The latter campaigns in prose and is maybe credible to a fault.
Ideally, Macron would seize the initiative in his last full year in power. He still controls the foreign policy of a nuclear power and could wield that to improve Europe's strategic coherence in an increasingly hostile and divided world. Getting a budget approved, including by constitutional decree if necessary, looks essential if the chaos of another parliamentary election is to be avoided.
Yet the depth of France's paralysis feels unprecedented and a snap election can't be ruled out in 2026. That means there is a chance that Macron bites the bullet eventually and allows his political nemeses a shot at forming a government. The true test of the RN, with Bardella as boyish prime minister, may come sooner than we think.