By Elizabeth Pineau and Michel Rose
PARIS, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Joseph Martin saw his hopes of becoming a far-right National Rally (RN) lawmaker derailed in 2024 after journalists unearthed a seemingly antisemitic post.
It was RN president Jordan Bardella who initially withdrew support for Martin's candidacy, seeking to show zero tolerance for antisemitism as the party tried to convince voters it had shed its toxic past and was ready for top office.
So as the RN closes ranks around Bardella while he grapples with his own accusations of antisemitism –which he denies –Martin said the RN chief should be held to the same standard and step aside while the claims are investigated.
"He judged me, condemned me and excluded me from the RN," said Martin, who was eventually cleared to run after the RN agreed his post was not antisemitic. However, he lost and saw his subsequent application to represent the party in future votes rejected, essentially ending his political career.
The discrepancy between how the RN handled accusations against the two men - one the rising star of the party and the other a little-known regional candidate - raises questions about one of its most fundamental claims: that it has decisively broken with the antisemitism that marked parts of its history.
"There's been packaging, cosmetics and strategy, but the ideas persist," said Sciences-Po university political scientist Gilles Ivaldi.
BARDELLA STANDS HIS GROUND
Bardella has denied the allegations by investigative outlet Mediapart, which published purported antisemitic and conspiratorial comments he made in chats as a teenager, calling them "crude fakes" and saying he would file defamation lawsuits.
Still, the scandal represents the gravest threat yet to the 31-year-old's rapid political ascent, while also posing a headache for RN presidential candidate Marine Le Pen as she seeks to win the presidency after three failed attempts.
Le Pen, who leads polls ahead of next year's vote, has led a decade-long rebrand of the RN, while Bardella has visited Israel to show the party is free of the antisemitism for which its founder, Marine's father Jean-Marie Le Pen, was convicted.
"This affair shines a harsh light on what the National Rally really is," said Socialist lawmaker GuillaumeGarot. However, he also acknowledged the controversy was competing for attention with a long list of voter concerns, from high school protests and a weak economy to geopolitics.
ALLEGATIONS MAY HURT LE PEN IN RUN-OFF VOTE
The RN has rallied to Bardella's defence, while also playing down the scandal. "I think it has absolutely no impact on the ground whatsoever," Le Pen aide Renaud Labaye told Reuters.
Some 74% of the Frenchbelieve the messages are problematic if true, according to an IFOP poll for LCI TV, but only 21% say their opinion of Bardella has deteriorated.
Bardella struck a defiant tone when challenged by a Mediapart journalist at a press conference last week.
"Your little operation doesn't seem to be cutting through," he said. "You'd have loved to see me on my knees, but you clearly don't know me very well."
Ivaldi said the RN's most loyal voters were unlikely to abandon the party as their priorities were purchasing power, energy prices, immigration and crime. But the scandal could hurt Le Pen in a run-off, when victory would depend on attracting conservative voters beyond the RN's traditional base.
"If there is an impact, it is more likely to be among second-round voters, particularly those who pay closer attention to theRN's ideological profile," he said.
INTERNAL TENSIONS
The controversy comes at a delicate moment in the relationship between Le Pen and her protege Bardella, who had been the party's de facto presidential candidate until a Paris appeals court cleared her to run in a shock July ruling.
Bardella had increasingly asserted his independence in the run-up to that verdict, and party officials said frictions have since grown, including over the RN's rapprochement with Le Pen's niece, Marion Maréchal, an anti-abortion firebrand and potential Bardella rival.
RN Senator Joshua Hochart played down the tensions but said Bardella was willing to make his disagreement known.
"Bardella isn't just Marine Le Pen's protégé. His views count and he's right to say when something isn't working," he said.
Although Le Pen has backed Bardella over theantisemitism claims, political rivals and analysts say he has been weakened.
"The case complicates Marine Le Pen's campaign," Ivaldi said. "He is no longer the major asset he was for her."
And in a party with a long history of sidelining ambitious politicians from outside the Le Pen clan, Bardella's future remains uncertain, Ivaldi said.
Eric Zemmour, a former presidential candidate from the extreme-right Reconquest party, was blunt about Bardella's diminished status.
"Jordan Bardella is in the process of being marginalized from the heart of the RN," he said on RTL radio on Monday, predicting he would now never become Le Pen's prime minister. "It's finished all that."
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Michel Rose; writing by Michel Rose, editing by Gabriel Stargardter and Andrew Cawthorne)