Le Pen vs. Bardella: France’s far right fractures over whether Putin is the enemy

 

Le Pen vs. Bardella: France’s far right fractures over whether Putin is the enemy

 

The National Rally leads the polls before the 2027 French presidential election, and its strategic vision on Moscow could have major implications for NATO.

 

January 27, 2026 6:37 pm CET

By Laura Kayali, Sarah Paillou and Marion Solletty

https://www.politico.eu/article/france-far-right-faces-internal-split-over-russia/

 

PARIS — France’s far-right National Rally is poised to win the country's presidency next year but the party is still sharply divided over whether to treat the Kremlin as the enemy.

 

Once among the most pro-Russian forces in French politics, the National Rally has had to row back since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In a notable change of tone, National Rally leaders have repeatedly criticized President Vladimir Putin’s war.

 

The problem hasn't gone away, however. A traditionalist old guard in the party that still echoes Kremlin talking points is now locked in a struggle to shape France's future foreign policy, pitted against a new generation more supportive of Ukraine.

 

It's an ideological battle with massive implications not only for France but for Europe's entire security landscape. France is a nuclear-armed NATO heavyweight that is spearheading efforts to arrange postwar security guarantees for Ukraine — potentially involving peacekeepers. A Russia-friendly administration in Paris after the 2027 presidential election would upend the established order inside NATO.

 

POLITICO spoke to six members of the National Rally who are close to the party's leaders and who represented both sides of the dispute over Russia. Their remarks revealed that a wing of the party around 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, currently the front-runner for the presidency, styles Russia as a "threat" to France and Europe. By contrast, a more traditionalist camp aligns with the classic Kremlin position that NATO's eastward expansion triggered the war. Each group has cast the other as being in the minority.

 

A French defense official directly involved with the country's military policy described the party as now effectively split into three: “A traditional pro-Russian faction, led by [MEP] Thierry Mariani, and a pro-Ukraine, pro-Western faction closer to [leader] Jordan Bardella, led by [MEP] Pierre-Romain Thionnet.”

 

“Between the two, there's a large group that doesn't think much about these issues — they are fundamentally pro-Russian, but they have understood that this is not very good electorally,” the official added.

 

Much will depend on who ultimately stands in next year's election as the National Rally's presidential candidate. Bardella currently tops polls, but Marine Le Pen is appealing an electoral ban after being convicted of embezzlement. If Le Pen wins her appeal, her name will almost certainly be back on the ballot for the Elysée.

 

While Bardella is tougher on Putin, Le Pen hails from the "Gaullist" tradition of President Charles de Gaulle, who was hostile to the U.S. and promoted cooperation with the Soviet Union. Le Pen has repeatedly vowed to pull France out of NATO's integrated command and has yet to live down a controversy over the party's multi-million-euro 2014 loan from a Moscow-linked bank.

 

“The foreign policy line will not be the same depending on whether Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen is the candidate [in 2027]. Marine is completely in the Gaullist tradition, while Jordan is more on a Gaullist-Atlanticist line,” said a high-profile National Rally member, granted anonymity to speak freely about the party's internal dynamics.

 

Bardella’s rebrand

For the National Rally, softening the Kremlin-friendly rhetoric was a key pillar of its strategy to enter the political mainstream.

 

The goal was to appeal to a wider range of voters while bolstering the party’s credibility. Partly for that reason, it made something of a show in 2023 of paying back its highly controversial loan from a Russian-linked lender.

 

Last year, National Rally MEPs abstained from European Parliament resolutions regarding Russia and Ukraine. | Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images

Russia’s war on Ukraine accelerated the far-right party’s apparent shift.“I condemned, and the National Rally condemned, without the slightest ambiguity, Russia's aggression against Ukraine,” Bardella told the BBC last month.

 

But the party's overall position remains ambiguous at best, especially on its willingness to confront Moscow. Last year, National Rally MEPs abstained from European Parliament resolutions regarding Russia and Ukraine, while in Paris, far-right MPs also abstained in a symbolic National Assembly vote on military and political support for Kyiv.

 

Bardella's support for Ukraine also has clear limits. He has spoken against sending long-range missiles to Kyiv and against deploying French troops to post-war Ukraine unless there’s a mandate from the United Nations.

 

“Since 2022, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella have significantly toned down their previous pro-Russian rhetoric. It had become inaudible,” said Olivier Schmitt, the Institute for Military Operations' head of research at the Royal Danish Defence College. “Jordan Bardella is probably the one who has gone furthest in this change of tone, as he does not have the same pro-Russian entourage as Marine Le Pen.”

 

“This shift is certainly tactical, since the vast majority of the French population supports Ukraine against Russia, but its sustainability is doubtful,” he added.

 

Bardella, a member of the European Parliament who was elected as party president in 2021, has been the face of the National Rally’s change. In 2023, he said — in an interview with French newspaper L'Opinion — that there was a “collective naïvité” toward Putin’s intentions.

 

In December, National Rally lawmakers approved a boost in France’s defense spending, which was partly framed by the government as a means to contend with a potential war between NATO and Russia.

 

 "In debates on the military programming law, the National Rally supported a change in the format of the armed forces, partly because of the threat posed by Russia and the undesirable hypothesis of a high-intensity conflict with Russia,” said Thionnet, one of Bardella’s close advisors on defense policy. “What we do not accept is presenting this shock as inevitable, when we should be working on how to avoid it.”

 

Unlike French President Emmanuel Macron, however, even the National Rally’s most pro-Ukraine factions refuse to qualify Moscow as an “existential threat” for France.

 

But Mariani’s hardline pro-Russia stance is isolated, Thionnet argued.

 

“On this specific issue [of Russia], Thierry Mariani has a personal opinion that does not represent the entire party,” he said.

 

Mariani traveled to Crimea after its annexation by Russia and said after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine that both countries had "provoked" the war. To this day he still appears in Russian media, where he has recently hinted that both Macron and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have an interest in keeping the war going.

 

“The party's position challenges the idea that Russia poses an ‘existential’ threat to France, like Islamism does, but affirms that it does indeed pose a multidimensional threat,”  Thionnet stressed.

 

Old habits die hard

Despite Bardella’s attempt at a revamp, the old guard remains influential within the far-right party and the most Russia-friendly figures have not been sidelined.

 

Patrice Hubert, who was the party's point person in Moscow in the 2010s when it was still known as the National Front, was appointed director general last fall.

 

Despite his pro-Kremlin rhetoric, Mariani was also named as the party's candidate for Paris mayor and is totally clear on his strategic position.

 

“The National Rally’s historical position is still one of non-alignment with NATO and Europe, and no European army,” he told POLITICO.

 

According to a report in Le Point, confirmed by POLITICO, Philippe Olivier — one of Le Pen’s close advisors — has expressed annoyance at Thionnet’s line behind closed doors. Speaking to POLITICO, another high-ranking member described Bardella’s man as an “Atlanticist” — an insult in a party that has long been fiercely anti-American. They were all granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject within the party.

 

“The National Rally's pro-Russian networks have been structured for a long time and are likely to be long-lasting,” said Schmitt from the Royal Danish Defence College.

 

On NATO, the party's position is fluid. While leaving the integrated command is still on the agenda, Thionnet pledged that France, under his party’s leadership, wouldn’t pull back abruptly from the military alliance.

 

“Withdrawal from NATO's integrated command would not be disorderly, and there would be no questioning of France’s commitment to our allies or of Article 5,” he said, referring to the presence of French troops in frontline states such as Estonia and Romania.

 

In recent months, as the war in Ukraine drags on, the far-right party has sought to cast itself as promoting peace. Leading party members have also said France should be careful not to provoke Russia.

 

On deploying French troops in post-war Ukraine, "Marine Le Pen has already said that only participation under a U.N. peacekeeping mandate would be acceptable,” stressed Renaud Labaye, the party’s secretary general in the National Assembly. “If it is under a NATO mandate, we cannot consider it. It would be like waving a red flag in front of Russia, and that is one of the factors that triggered the conflict.”

 

In the past year, National Rally lawmakers have regularly accused Macron of war-mongering and of using the war in Ukraine to obscure domestic troubles.

 

In December, unlike most other lawmakers taking the stage, Le Pen barely mentioned Russia in a speech about France’s military expenditures and the international context — instead slamming the European Commission for allegedly seeking greater power over national defense policies.

 

“With this speech,” said a second French defense official, “we have seen that Le Pen’s main enemy is Europe, not Russia.”

 

Anthony Lattier contributed to this report.