Five years ago, his list of candidates came only just ahead of President Emmanuel Macron's centrist alliance. Next month, if opinion polls are accurate, he will take one in three of the votes cast in France and defeat Macron's Renew list by 15 points.
The obvious, but inadequate, explanation is that the high polling scores for Bardella and the RN are generated by seven years of accumulated anger and disappointment with Emmanuel Macron.
He is popular because of who he is. He is also popular because of who he is not. He is appealing because he looks like a well-scrubbed boy-next-door. He has a talent for speaking in calm, pre-cooked soundbites on 24-hour TV (and on Tik-Tok, where he has one million followers).
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