Jordan Bardella addresses “all the women of France”: this detail says a lot about the RN’s strategy

Monday 17 June 2024, and while the first round of the legislative elections will be held in just under two weeks, Jordan Bardella wanted “ [s’]addressed to all the women of France » in a video shared on What can we learn from this speech by the far-right enemy? Analyses.

Continue to demonize the party

Everything in this video is for demonization process initiated by the far right for several decades. A purely visual analysis already goes in this direction. Jordan Bardella uses all presidential video codes; he places himself in the figure of the providential man who in his office addresses the French people. One detail catches the eye: behind the politician, who is already proposing himself as Prime Minister, there is the poster “Freedom, equality, fraternity » by street artist Shepard Fairey, known by the pseudonym Obey. Painted on the wall of an HLM in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, the work, in the colors of our flag and depicting a stylized Marianne, was created after the Bataclan attacks, in support of the French people.

It’s not the first time the work has been highlighted by a politician. She was the protagonist of the first major interview with the newly elected Emmanuel Macron, filmed by TF1 in October 2017. The French thus discovered Obey’s work, enthroned in the presidential office of the Elysée, majestically housed between two windows.

If we retrace the thread, the symbolism is even stronger. Artist Obey first rose to fame during Obama’s presidential campaign, creating the famous portrait Hope (hope in French), in support of the Democratic candidate during his first campaign, in 2008.

There is therefore nothing banal in seeing Jordan Bardella adopt the iconography of popular heads of state, be it Macron in 2017, (established at the time as a young political hope) or Obama, the first black president of the United States, bearer of anti-racist and progressive ideas.

Reclaim feminism and reverse the process of demonization

Another blatant pirouette, the candidate accuses “the far left” to be “they have arrogated to themselves the monopoly on women's rights”. Using a mirror strategy, it then demonizes the LFI and accuses it of co-opting the women's vote as well as issues that concern them (just as the RN can co-opt some important current issues, such as antisemitism).

Contrary to what has been widely demonstrated, Giordano Bardella rewrites history and states that the RN deputies “fight every day to achieve progress” regarding women's rights.

It also draws an uncertain parallel between foreigners, current migration policy and the insecurity that would prevent women from walking freely in the streets, under penalty of being attacked. Jordan Bardella thus uses women's defense to support his thesis on security and justify the xenophobic ideology of the far right. This rhetoric cannot ignore that of Éric Zemmour or Marine Le Pen who, in 2014, declared LCI that 52% of rapes committed in Paris were committed by foreigners. A statement which is therefore nothing new and which above all reflects a great ignorance on the subject. As already shown in 2018 in an information report presented by the delegation of the National Assembly for women's rights and equal opportunities between men and women on rape, in 9 out of 10 cases the attacker is a relative of the victim. And in 45% of rapes it is the spouse or ex-spouse.