French far-right leader Jordan Bardella made his latest push to shore up European alliances ahead of France's 2027 presidential election, pledging a tough common line on migration as he met Flemish nationalists in Brussels.
The 30-year-old head of France’s Rassemblement National (RN) was invited by the anti-immigrant Vlaams Belang party to deliver an evening speech at the Flemish parliament.
Who leads the RN into battle next year will not be known until July 7th, when a French appeals court decides whether long-time leader Marine Le Pen is barred from running over a graft conviction, leaving her lieutenant to step in and take her place.
Bardella is riding high in the polls and behaving like a candidate-in-waiting, travelling to Portugal, Italy and now Belgium to strengthen ties with like-minded politicians who are hostile to immigration, climate action and to what they see as stifling EU red tape.
“It is more important than ever that we work together,” Bardella told a joint news conference with Vlaams Belang leader Tom Van Grieken, later hailing the “fraternal ties” between their camps in his parliament address.
