A few months later, he was seen in Monaco with Maria Carolina in a VIP box at the Formula 1 Grand Prix. At the time, France was reeling from the killing of Lyhanna Rameau Bernard, an 11-year-old who had disappeared and was later found dead in a grain silo. That same day in Fleurance, a commune in southern France, around 6,000 people took part in a silent march in her memory. A week after, he was asked on BFM TV about the contrast between the memorial march and his presence in the principality of Monaco and responded: “Is that a serious question?” He noted that Lyhanna’s family had asked politicians not to attend, but only after adding: “There are silent marches every day.”
Within the National Rally, concerns were beginning to mount: Was Bardella losing touch amid his new taste for the high life? Did Le Pen worry that her protégé had become a princeling, a political liability, and did that play a role in her decision to jump back in the race? Or is she just desperate to be president?
Now Le Pen seems to be promising an American-style ticket: She’ll be president and Bardella will be her prime minister. But Americans elect a president and vice president in the same election, while in France the president is elected directly by voters and then he (or perhaps soon she) appoints a prime minister based in part on the results of separate legislative elections. Bardella will have to wait for the results, and for Le Pen to keep her word. An RN campaign poster already leaves room for doubt about Le Pen’s commitment to Bardella: She appears on it alone, with the slogan “For France, a Renaissance,” her arms outstretched above French flags like a risen Christ.
“It’s a joint campaign, and they will continue to work as a team,” Chabert, Bardella’s press adviser, adds in his response to Vanity Fair. “There has been no change in their respective roles. We will not allow attempts to destabilize the presidential campaign to affect us. In fact, they are holding a joint press conference [last week] to present the alternative budget.”
