Political sabotage or an exposure of antisemitism? Jordan Bardella, president of France’s right-wing National Rally party, intends to file a defamation lawsuit against a media outlet that attributed antisemitic remarks to him from when he was a teenager.
A report by the Mediapart news website claimed that when Bardella was 17 years old, he made openly antisemitic statements about Jews on several occasions.
Among the quotes attributed to Bardella in the report are statements such as, “The Jew must dominate other people, trample them and rob them," and, “What they want is a new world order controlled by Israel, with Jerusalem, of course, as its capital."
It was also alleged that Bardella said that “all banks are owned by Jews." The news outlet said the quotations were “the result of an investigation lasting several months that examined dozens of written conversations Bardella conducted in 2013."
The website did not publish screenshots or other evidence of Bardella’s alleged antisemitic correspondence. It should be noted that Mediapart is identified with the political left in France, while Bardella is president of the far-right National Rally party.
In response to the reports, Bardella denied making antisemitic statements and announced that he intends to file a defamation lawsuit against the news website.
He claimed that the report was an attempt to sabotage the campaign ahead of the French presidential election, which is due to take place in seven months. National Rally’s candidate is Marine Le Pen.
“Everything is being done to destabilize the election campaign. Either Mediapart is conducting this operation itself, or it is being directed by parties with an interest in doing so. Of course, I have instructed my lawyer to file a defamation lawsuit," Bardella said in an interview with CNews.