Stormy days are ahead for Macron

At 28 years old, Jordan Bardella just missed by an aspirational hair’s breadth becoming the youngest French prime minister ever.

- ROSIE DIMANNO

Voters disappointed far right-wing leaders Marine Le Pen, left, and Jordan Bardella in Sunday's election. But the pair, and their National Rally party, are on the upswing and eyeing victory when Macron's term ends in three years, writes Rosie DiManno

And the parliamentary leader of the country’s first far right-wing government since the Vichy era.

A spawn of immigrants who doesn’t much like immigrants, although Bardella has modified his xenophobic bona fides to incorporate “culturally compatible” Europeans. Son of a divorced mother who moved to France from Italy, he’s described himself as a Frenchman who is “75 per cent Italian,” sketchy on the genealogical details.

Raised in the sprawling Saint-Denis suburb of Paris — a hardscrabble ethnically jumbled enclave of first- and second-generation arrivals — he blames multiculturalism for much of France’s malaise, a sentiment that resonates with a large swath of the electorate.

“I grew up in a humble project where I experienced, to my very core, the feeling of becoming a foreigner in my own country,” Bardella told reporters last month. “I’ve experienced the Islamization of my neighbourhood. I’ve experienced the insecurity. I’ve experienced the search-and-frisk when you enter your building and you’re confronted with drug trafficking.”

He idolizes the doyenne of French nationalism Marine Le Pen — even dated her niece, one degree of separation removed from a genuine son-in-law — and, by every outward indication, is adored by a great many young French voters.

To his detractors, Bardella is the Manchurian candidate, Le Pen’s charismatic forward-facing avatar who’s helped boost resurgence of the National Rally party (NR) — anti-immigration at its core, Euroskeptic — making it more palatable for the masses.