French MP Sabrina Sebaihi announced on Monday that she will refer Rassemblement National president Jordan Bardella to the Paris public prosecutor following an investigative report detailing alleged antisemitic messages.
The Green party lawmaker for Hauts-de-Seine took action after investigative news site Mediapart published an inquiry into private messages allegedly written by Bardella in 2013. Sebaihi stated in a letter seen by news agency AFP that the allegations involved actions that could trigger criminal charges due to their antisemitic nature.
Sebaihi noted that the alleged messages attributed a desire for political, financial, and international domination to Jewish people. She told AFP that around ten fellow members of parliament had joined her legal notification at this stage.
Investigation into private messages
The Mediapart report relies on private online conversations that the investigative outlet said it had identified from the summer of 2013. At the time, Bardella was 17 or 18 years old and had been an active member of the Front National for about a year and a half. Mediapart did not name the recipients of the messages.
According to the report, the messages attributed to Bardella included claims that all banks were owned by Jewish people. The texts allegedly stated that Jewish people must dominate, crush, and rob other peoples, while asserting that any Zionist was inherently Jewish. The messages also described a New World Order dominated by Israel with Jerusalem as its capital.
Bardella joined the Front National as a teenager before rising quickly through party ranks. The far-right party, founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen, changed its name to Rassemblement National in 2018 in a bid to soften its political image. Bardella took over the party presidency in 2022, becoming one of the most prominent political figures in France.
Defamation complaint and denial
Bardella firmly rejected all the allegations made against him. Writing on social media platform X after the report was published, the party leader said he formally denied the accusations and characterized the comments attributed to him by Mediapart as delusional and antisemitic.
Speaking later on Monday evening on the news channel CNews, Bardella announced that his lawyer had filed a defamation lawsuit against Mediapart. He claimed that opponents were orchestrating efforts to destabilize the Rassemblement National presidential campaign and destroy him politically.
Bardella added on television that Mediapart was either leading a political campaign against him or allowing itself to be manipulated by outside parties with an interest in harming his candidacy. The Paris public prosecutor will now decide whether to open a formal investigation into the referral submitted by Sebaihi and her parliamentary colleagues.
Under French law, public prosecutors review referrals from lawmakers to determine if sufficient evidence exists to launch a preliminary investigation into suspected hate speech or criminal offences. Mediapart, an independent subscription-based news website founded in 2008, has frequently published investigative reports on French political leaders across the spectrum.
