2027 Presidential: The Astral Void of RNs Foreign Policy, by Catherine Fieschi

Opinion. If Marine Le Pen’s party and Jordan Bardella were to gain access to the Élysée Palace in 2027, the rupture could be as strategic as it is ideological. But no one can truly measure the extent of it, as the party lacks a credible foreign policy doctrine or program.

Published on May 12, 2026 at 05:45

Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella at a National Rally meeting on May 1st in Macon. REUTERS

The uncertainty surrounding the July 7 verdict undoubtedly plays a role, but a year before a possible change, the vagueness of the National Rally on the international stage seems inherent. Jordan Bardella embodies a strategic void – no articulated reflection on France as a European power, no framework on deterrence, alliances, multilateralism.

He tries to compensate for this with an image of a pragmatic “business-friendly” approach, reassuring economic circles, by adopting a French Meloni persona: firm on cultural issues, but reasonable on European rules. Marine Le Pen, more loyal to her father’s legacy, maintains an ambiguous stance on the extent of the rupture she desires with Brussels. Her program remains one of a France in a permanent face-off with Brussels, where the Union is merely seen as a constraint to be loosened.