Racist Facebook Group Linked to Far-Right French Party Leaders Exposed

An investigation by the online news site Les Jours has uncovered the existence of a Facebook group dedicated to Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally (RN). Titled "France with Jordan Bardella," this private group is administered by several officials, former candidates, and parliamentary staff of the Le Pen party, including Rémi Garnier and Gérôme Corblin, and until last week had some 11,500 members who are party members or supporters of the far-right party.

Among them are nine RN deputies: Nicolas Dragon (Aisne), Christian Girard (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), René Lioret (Côte-d’Or), Caroline Colombier (Charente), Nathalie Da Conceicao Carvalho (Essonne), Pascal Markowsky (Charente-Maritime), Pascale Bordes (Gard), Laurence Robert-Dehault (Haute-Marne), and Monique Griseti (Bouches-du-Rhône). They joined the group between September 2023 and January 2024.

Titled "France with Jordan Bardella," the group is characterized by calls for hatred and violence, antisemitic, Islamophobic, racist, and homophobic comments. "Arabs out," "France is run by Zionist Jews," "Macron little faggot," "First, Zionists out! You have no right to command the people! And all the planetary shit that you’ve let in to hybridize France, it leaves with you!" were among the comments that the site Les Jours, which infiltrated the group, was able to catalog. Other messages included: "This is all it takes to straighten out my France and get rid of all these Zionists who live off the French people’s backs," could be read under a visual of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.

None of the RN deputies present on the forum reacted to these racist and antisemitic messages, even though as elected representatives of the people, each should report them according to Article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. None of the authors of these posts were excluded from the group, nor were any messages moderated.

When the online media outlet contacted the elected officials to discuss the group and the posts being published, there was a mass exodus. Several of them left "France with Jordan Bardella." The administrators had to rename the group "For France" before leaving it.

After the investigation was published, only deputy Nicolas Dragon responded to the media’s questions. He claims he doesn’t know how he joined this group, perhaps "on someone’s suggestion through an invitation to join such a group as [he] receive[s] dozens and dozens every week." He explained that he was not aware of what was being said or shared in this group. "(...) I simply never go there, I don’t have the time available to do so. [...] I will therefore leave this group, given what I have discovered," he added.