France Télévisions plans to continue broadcasting, Thursday evening, January 18, an issue of “Complement of investigation” on the president of the National Rally (RN), Jordan Bardella, although he contests revelations about its use from an anonymous Twitter account which broadcast racist messages.
The far-right party declared Wednesday evening that it had commissioned bailiffs to prevent the broadcast of the extract concerning this Twitter account. France TV told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that it was not aware of this procedure at this stage. “There are no changes made to the magazine, which will be broadcast this [Thursday] evening” on France 2 at 10:35 p.m., it was clarified within the public group.
Based on four sources, three of which are anonymous, the report – devoted to the rapid political rise of the young 28-year-old president of the RN – mentions a Twitter account that Jordan Bardella would have used from 2015 to 2017, under the pseudonym RepNat of Gaito. The account was used to spread racist and homophobic messages, as well as to praise the personality of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Front (FN), or to attack journalists.
Marine Le Pen “discreetly unsubscribed last night”
“The sources of @PSFort [Pierre-Stéphane Fort, the journalist who led the investigation] are categorical,” underlined Wednesday evening on X the presenter of the investigative magazine, Tristan Waleckx. On Thursday, the journalist also declared, still on X, that Marine Le Pen had “discreetly unsubscribed last night [Wednesday evening]” from Gaito’s RepNat account.
For his part, a source close to the RN told AFP that a former assistant to Florian Philippot, former vice-president of the FN who left the party, was hiding behind Gaito’s RepNat Twitter account. In the same report, which AFP was able to view, Jordan Bardella himself denies having tweeted under this false identity: “I’m sorry to disappoint you but I only have one Twitter account,” he said. he responded to France 2, upon his arrival in front of the Parisian establishment, where he presented his wishes to the press on Tuesday. “I’m not going to take responsibility for comments I didn’t make,” he added.
The report notably relates the beginning of the political career of Jordan Bardella, in circles close to Florian Philippot. A media training specialist, Pascal Humeau, explains how he contributed to forging the political identity of the president of the RN, who will lead his party’s list in the next European elections in June, and is currently dominating the polls.