Jordan Bardella, the president of France’s far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National, or RN) party, has articulated a vision for Europe that is both ambitious and disruptive, despite his party’s official abandonment of its Frexit proposal seven years ago. In an interview with POLITICO ahead of a trip to Poland, Bardella made clear that renouncing a French exit from the European Union does not equate to accepting the bloc’s current trajectory. Instead, he advocates for a profound internal transformation from within, a “revolution” in the functioning of the EU’s institutions. His goal is not to dismantle the union but to radically reshape its governance, stripping away layers of what he perceives as bureaucratic overreach and recentralizing political sovereignty in the hands of member states. This position allows Bardella to project a more pragmatic, less politically toxic image than the outright euroscepticism of the Frexit era, while still promising his base a fundamental confrontation with the Brussels establishment. He frames this not as destruction, but as a necessary reformation to save the European project from itself, pivoting the party’s European strategy towards a battle for internal control rather than a messy and electorally risky exit.
A central pillar of Bardella’s proposed overhaul concerns the fundamental principle of national sovereignty versus supranational authority. He envisions a European Union that functions as a “coalition of nation-states,” a stark contrast to the current push for deeper political and fiscal integration. In practice, this would mean systematically rolling back the EU’s competences, particularly in areas like environmental policy (the Green Deal), economic governance, and migration. Laws such as the Green Deal, he argues, impose crippling costs on European industries and consumers without democratic consent from individual nations. His model borrows explicitly from the vision championed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and, historically, by British eurosceptics: a Europe where the Commission’s role is drastically reduced to that of a mere secretariat, and where the fundamental ability to propose legislation is wrested from it and returned to the Council of member states. This “Europe of nations” framework is the bedrock of his agenda, designed to appeal to those who feel their national identity and democratic voice have been subsumed by an opaque and distant bureaucracy.
On the critical question of European security and France’s role within it, Bardella’s stance is marked by a sharp duality: unwavering verbal support for NATO coupled with a profound skepticism of European military autonomy. He firmly positions himself as a “Atlanticist,” expressing steadfast support for the NATO alliance and its collective defense clause, Article 5. This is a conscious and significant distancing from the historical posture of some French nationalists, including his mentor Marine Le Pen, who have often exhibited Gaullist skepticism of American-led security structures. However, this Atlanticism comes with a major caveat: he is a vocal opponent of the EU’s developing defense initiatives, such as the European Defence Fund or efforts towards an integrated EU military command. He dismisses these projects as wasteful, redundant bureaucracies that sap resources and focus from the “real” military alliance, NATO. This position serves a dual purpose; it reassures international partners and moderate voters of his commitment to Western solidarity against powers like Russia, while simultaneously allowing him to critique the EU for overreach and financial folly in yet another policy domain.
This security philosophy directly informs Bardella’s controversial and revealing position on Ukraine, which he discussed in the same interview. He confirmed his refusal to visit Ukraine, a stance that has drawn considerable criticism. His reasoning is twofold and deeply intertwined with his nationalist worldview. First, he argues that as a candidate for the role of prime minister in France—a nation he describes as “a nation of peace” and not a “co-belligerent”—such a visit could be misconstrued as a gesture of escalation, potentially drawing France further into the conflict. Second, and more fundamentally, he ties his position to a critique of French and European aid policy. Bardella asserts that France has already provided significant support and must now prioritize its own defense industrial base, rearming its own military before sending more equipment abroad. He also echoes a long-standing RN complaint that France is shouldering a disproportionate burden compared to other European nations like Germany. This stance is less about outright pro-Russian sentiment and more about a nationalist, “France-first” prioritization, coupled with a deep-seated aversion to any action that might draw the country deeper into what he seemingly views as a distant, Eastern European conflict.
The political calculation behind Bardella’s refined European positioning is both acute and deliberate. By shelving Frexit, he has removed the single biggest barrier to the RN’s electoral respectability and its chance to wield real power. The prospect of leaving the euro and the EU terrified markets and alienated a broad swath of the French electorate. His current platform of “change from within” is far more palatable, allowing him to channel eurosceptic sentiment into a vote for him as a disruptive force inside the system, rather than as a wrecker of the system itself. This strategy aims to broaden the RN’s appeal beyond its traditional base to include disillusioned conservatives, working-class voters suffering from inflation (which he blames on EU policies), and those simply weary of the current political establishment. He is offering a form of revolutionary pragmatism: the promise of seismic change without the immediate, catastrophic risk of exit. This rebranding has been essential to his party’s ascent, making it a viable contender for governance rather than a permanent protest movement.
In conclusion, Jordan Bardella’s interview with POLITICO reveals a political project that is, in many ways, more sophisticated and potentially more disruptive than the old Frexit mantra. He is not advocating for France to abandon the European table; he is campaigning to seize the head of that table and then fundamentally rewrite the rules of the game. His vision is of a European Union hollowed out of its supranational power, a NATO-centric security sphere devoid of EU ambition, and a French foreign policy governed by a strict, nationalist hierarchy of interests. While he wraps his arguments in the language of democratic legitimacy, peace, and pragmatic Atlanticism, the end goal remains a profound diminution of the European Union as a cohesive political entity. As he prepares for potential power, the continent is left to ponder whether Bardella represents a manageable critic or an existential challenge to the European project—a politician who no longer wishes to blow up the clubhouse, but is determined to take it over and lock most of its rooms shut.
