By Christophe Préault, managing director of Touteleurope.eu

The French extreme-right party Rassemblement national swept the polls at the 2024 European elections – achieving its best result in its history. It also received more than one third of the under-35 vote. Our special guest, Christophe Préault, managing director of Touteleurope.eu, analyses the success of the Rassemblement national and of its leader, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, originally from the outskirts of Paris and ubiquitous on TikTok.

The Rassemblement national (RN) achieved results unprecedented in its history in the June 2024 European elections, attracting almost one third of voters (31.4%). The extreme-right party led the votes in almost all age and socio-professional groups, reshuffling the electoral deck. This is particularly true among younger voters, where Bardella’s list attracted 32% of the 25-34 vote and gained over 10 percentage points (25%) compared to the 2019 European elections among the 18-24 age group.

There are several reasons why young people are drawn to the RN. First there is Bardella’s personality. The leading candidate in the European elections and president of his party, he stands in contrast to traditional politicians. For young people he speaks truth, he is straight-edge and he appears sincere at a time of distrust in the political world. His personal background is also one to which many people can relate: a middle-class child, Bardella grew up in the outskirts of Paris (Seine-Saint-Denis), did not attend a prestigious school and does not have a university degree – just a high school diploma in his pocket. This is how he has become so popular among young people, who worry about their future and feel left behind or even forgotten.

If he has managed to draw in so many from the 18-34 age group, it is because he is so young. At the age of 28, he knows the ways of this generation perfectly well, and he also knows how to play on them. It is also interesting to note that in 2017, it was Emmanuel Macron who embodied this triumphant youth, but in another level of society.

The RN thus capitalises on the personality of its leader and on an image largely cultivated through social media. Jordan Bardella is ubiquitous on TikTok, which plays an important role in his electoral strategy, at a time when young people are no longer getting their news from traditional media networks. His popularity is growing, with 1.6 million subscribers. He doesn’t talk about reforming the European Treaties, about Ukraine or the Green Deal – no. He puts the spotlight on his everyday life, sends Mother’s Day wishes and films himself in his office and on his various trips. He rides trends and talks about hot topics. He even challenges gamers – young (and not so young) video game enthusiasts.

The growing distance between the new generations and the traditional world of politics strengthens his image, his position and the populist discourse, while voter concerns have been diverging since the 2019 European elections. Young people’s fight for environmental issues in 2019 has shifted to other topics which are equally concerning, but rooted in everyday life. It is insecurity (linked to immigration) and purchasing power that worries them today. The extreme-right party has established itself by feeding on this anger, capitalising on the sentiment of a generation who feels wronged. The political establishment as a whole has not taken sufficient account of the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic cruelly exposed and exacerbated the inequalities that already existed for young French and European people, not only in the labour market but also in access to education, including greater difficulty in continuing education or simply undertaking training, at a time when all-digital technology was pushed as the solution.

Therefore rather than worrying about the RN, we need to first focus on RN voters, and especially on middle-class youth. They need to be provided responses that are clear, practical, and in line with their concerns – increasing violence in society, dwindling public resources in rural areas, trouble finding work or undertaking quality training, and the feeling of uncontrolled immigration. For traditional political parties, this means going down a notch and worrying about those who regularly pass under the radar – those who are not interested because they aren’t particularly political or engaged in politics. In this fight, we must recognise that the European Union is not very visible, despite the numerous programmes dedicated to youth, education, employment support and the fight against poverty. The Erasmus programme, which promotes mobility and experiences for a more diverse population (apprentices, the unemployed, etc.), is a starting point, but it is clearly not enough today. With regard to managing migration, which is a central and polarising subject in our European societies, coming up with a solution is also about asking the right question. It is a topic that is still under discussion despite the recent adoption of the European Pact on Migration and Asylum.

Christophe Préault is a journalist and the managing director of Touteleurope.eu, an educational information site on the functioning and policies of the European Union. He has many years of experience in dealing with current affairs, particularly European and economic issues. Having graduated from the Institut d'études politiques de Bordeaux (Bordeaux Institute for Political Studies – Sciences Po Bordeaux) and the Cycle des Hautes Etudes Européennes de l’École nationale d'administration (National School of Administration’s Cycle of Advanced European Studies), he is now in charge of operations at Touteleurope.eu, and regularly moderates debates and conferences on European subjects.