{"id":102639,"date":"2026-05-07T16:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T16:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/102639\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T16:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T16:55:08","slug":"french-far-right-leaders-court-israel-envoy-ahead-of-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/102639\/","title":{"rendered":"French far-right leaders court Israel envoy ahead of vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

France’s far-right leaders have met the ambassadors of Germany and Israel in recent months as their party, once deemed antisemitic, seeks to court foreign envoys in the run-up to next year’s presidential elections.<\/a><\/p>\n

Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally (RN) <\/a>party is eyeing its best chance yet at taking power, with President Emmanuel Macron stepping down after hitting the two-term limit.<\/p>\n

Le Pen hopes to run for president for a fourth time in 2027, after twice making it to the runoffs against Macron in the last two votes.<\/p>\n

But if an appeals court in July bars the 57-year-old from public office over an alleged fake jobs scam in European Parliament, her lieutenant Jordan Bardella<\/a>, 30, is expected to run in her place.<\/p>\n

France is home to western Europe’s largest Jewish population, at around half a million people.<\/p>\n

Le Pen has long sought to make the party she inherited from her father Jean-Marie more palatable, including by distancing it from the antisemitic legacy of a man convicted for Holocaust denial<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As polls suggest she or Bardella could well lead in the first round of the election, the strategy seems to have paid off.<\/p>\n

Bardella, who is RN party leader after taking over from Le Pen, in February met the German ambassador, his party and a participant said.<\/p>\n

The embassy did not confirm the meeting.<\/p>\n

But AFP reported citing a diplomatic source who said that\u00a0it was “the responsibility of a foreign mission to maintain contacts with all the political forces in the host country concerned”.<\/p>\n

Germany has long been among Israel’s staunchest allies, something Berlin has grounded in the country’s responsibility for the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

“Yes, they met in February,” a member of Bardella’s team said, seeking to present it as a routine meeting.<\/p>\n

He “meets many ambassadors as part of his duties as head of the RN party and as leader of a group in the European Parliament,” the person said.<\/p>\n

Bardella is head of the Patriots for Europe group, the EU legislature’s third-largest bloc that was co-founded in 2024 by former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0‘Areas of convergence’<\/p>\n

The participant said the discussion between Bardella and the German ambassador made it possible to identify “areas of convergence” on several issues in France and neighbouring Germany.<\/p>\n

They focused in particular on “budgetary discipline” in both leading EU member states.<\/p>\n

The episode follows Le Pen last month meeting the Israeli ambassador for the first time.<\/p>\n

The embassy confirmed the meeting, with a diplomatic source adding that the ambassador “received all political parties” except from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI).<\/p>\n

LFI has criticised Israel over the war in Gaza, and its leader Jean-Luc Melenchon<\/a> — also a candidate next year — has been accused of making antisemitic comments.<\/p>\n

Before the meeting with the Israeli envoy, Le Pen had the previous day been seen meeting the Lebanese ambassador, who thanked her for her solidarity as his country sought a lasting ceasefire with neighbouring Israel.<\/p>\n

Both Le Pen and Bardella also met the US ambassador late last year.<\/p>\n

US ambassador Charles Kushner in December on X posted a picture of himself with them, saying he appreciated the chance to learn from them “about the RN’s economic and social agenda and their views on what lies ahead for France”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France’s far-right leaders have met the ambassadors of Germany and Israel in recent months as their party, once…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2196,382,37,2200,35729],"class_list":{"0":"post-102639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-far-right","9":"tag-france","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-marine-le-pen","12":"tag-national-rally"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116534347245952773","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}