The National Rally (RN) planned to spend the week savoring its progress in the senatorial elections. He will ultimately spend it defending his president. Since Monday, Jordan Bardella, promised to Matignon in the event of Marine Le Pen’s victory, has been facing accusations of anti-Semitism published by Mediapart, which he contests entirely. The investigative site says it relies on dozens of private conversations, dated from 2013 to 2015 and authenticated according to it “independently”.
Then a young activist of the National Front in Seine-Saint-Denis, Jordan Bardella wrote in particular that “the banks are all owned (sic) by Jews” or that “the Jew must dominate (sic) other peoples, crush them and steal from them”. He would also cite Bernard-Henri Lévy and Jacques Attali to illustrate an alleged project for a “New World Order dominated by Israel” and would judge the analyzes of the anti-Semitic ideologue Alain Soral to be “fair”.
The president of the RN denounces “gross falsehoods” and assures that he was not an active activist in the summer of 2013, even if he always claimed to have joined the FN in 2012. After announcing a defamation complaint, he raised his voice on Tuesday in front of his party’s parliamentarians, evoking “the beginnings of a total war” whose objective would be to “kill (his) political career”, and promised the case appropriate complaints for “forgery” and “use of forgery”. The newspaper maintains its information: these writings are “well signed by the hand of Bardella”, assured Franceinfo one of the co-authors of the investigation. If they are proven, what does the president of the National Rally risk?
The president of the RN denounces “gross forgeries” and a “sham operation”. Photo Sipa/Adrien Pittore
The previous “RepNat du Gaito”
This is not the first time that Jordan Bardella has been suspected of having made comments, away from the cameras, that he would not say in public. In January 2024, “Additional investigation” already attributed to him, on the basis of four sources including three anonymous, the Twitter account “RepNat du Gaito”, active from 2015 to 2017. Never had he been so directly implicated. This account multiplied racist and homophobic messages and attacks against journalists. We could see a photo of the Créteil swimming pool captioned “The Black Sea”, or an obscene montage targeting Théo Luhaka, victim of a violent arrest in Aulnay-sous-Bois. Jordan Bardella denied this, claiming to have “only one Twitter account”.
To our knowledge, these accusations have not led to any prosecution. The Mediapart revelations could suffer the same fate: even authentic, the messages are unlikely to result in prosecution for the president of the RN, believes Me Jérôme Navy, criminal lawyer at the Paris bar and member of the Rift law firm.
Private exchanges, a simple infraction
Everything first depends on the nature of the exchanges. “The offenses of incitement to hatred, defamation and racial insult provided for by the law of July 29, 1881 require publicity,” recalls M.e Navy. However, for the Court of Cassation, comments made within a circle united by a “community of interests” are not public.
The messages attributed to Jordan Bardella would therefore at most amount to an infraction, such as non-public incitement to hatred, punishable by a maximum fine of 1,500 euros. The lawyer remains cautious: everything depends on “the exact form of the exchanges”, which Mediapart does not specify at this stage. Published on an open social network, like the tweets of “RepNat du Gaito”, they could then constitute an offense, punishable by one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros.
The prescription, the real lock
It is above all the calendar which protects Jordan Bardella. The limitation period runs from the day the comments are made, not the day they are revealed. “The limitation period for provoking non-public hatred was three months at the time,” explains Me Navy. For messages more than ten years old, the conclusion is obvious: “The statute of limitations therefore today constitutes an obstacle to any criminal prosecution. » That some could have been written before his 18th birthday changes nothing, because “the minority of the author of an offense does not modify the limitation periods”. The “RepNat du Gaito” tweets were also long overdue in 2024.
The reporting announced by environmentalist deputies under article 40 of the code of criminal procedure, which obliges public authorities to report crimes and offenses of which they are aware to the prosecutor, therefore has little chance of succeeding. “Article 40 only targets crimes and misdemeanors. We are therefore a priori out of scope”, underlines the lawyer, for whom “the most likely outcome is a dismissal”. The personalities cited would have no further recourse, either criminally or civilly. As for his mandate as a Member of the European Parliament, it plays no role, immunity only covering opinions and votes expressed in the exercise of his functions. “The real obstacle to prosecution is therefore not immunity but limitation,” summarizes M.e Navy.
A defamation trial in perspective?
Paradoxically, it is Jordan Bardella himself who could bring the matter to court. Will he do it? “In this story, there is going to be a death. But which one? », Launches the vice-president of the Republicans Julien Aubert on Radio J. Faced with a defamation complaint, a media outlet can prove the truth of its information or plead good faith, assessed in particular with regard to the seriousness of the investigation. Me Navy refuses to make any predictions about a procedure “the documents of which are unknown”, but recalls that case law, “under the influence of the European Court of Human Rights, strongly protects investigative journalism relating to political leaders, provided that the investigation is serious”.
The heart of the debate will focus on the authenticity of messages, which can be established by “the production of the original media and their metadata”, an expertise or the testimony of the interlocutors of the time. Judged in Paris by the 17th correctional chamber, these cases often take more than a year: a decision before the 2027 presidential election therefore seems unlikely.
