The exotic fruit pavlova, with its vanilla emulsion, had just been served in the reception hall of the Cercle Interallié in Paris when a question to Jordan Bardella roused the assembly of suit-and-tie attendees from their slumber. "How can you be a presidential candidate without really being a candidate, but still a little bit?" asked a nosy guest who had spent €97 to attend the lunch between the president of the Rassemblement National (RN) and business leaders, organized on Monday, April 28 by the nonprofit Ethic.

A murmur of excitement spread in the gilded room, quickly silenced by the event's organizer, Sophie de Menthon. "That's not an economic question," she dismissed, under the approving gaze of Marine Le Pen's lieutenant, inviting him to resume his pro-business précis.

About a year remains before the decision in the appeal trial in the embezzlement case in which Le Pen was convicted by a lower court and barred from running in elections for five years. Until the summer of 2026, she and her party are facing tough questions and potential pitfalls. They will have to keep a cool head in the face of polls and street interviews that show a significant portion of RN activists now pushing for the nearly 30-year-old Bardella to embody the far right in the 2027 presidential election.

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