French media outlet Mediapart has published new material in the case of the antisemitic messages attributed to Jordan Bardella.
The investigative outlet on Thursday published screenshots of Facebook Messenger conversations involving him from 2013 and 2014, whose authenticity it says was established through a data extraction supplied by Meta and certified by a court bailiff, as Edwy Plenel, the outlet's co-founder, explained on Twitter.
The investigation, conducted over several months, draws on dozens of written conversations and interviews with 18 people. The exchanges from 2013 and 2014 were passed on to Mediapart by two separate sources, both from Jordan Bardella's entourage. The outlet has stated the two sources are entirely separate and are not linked.
Jordan Bardella, who has denied from the very start of the affair that he is the author of these messages, filed a defamation complaint against Mediapart after the publication of the initial investigation.
The National Rally leader has so far rejected the accusations and on X denounced "crude fakes" and an operation designed to destabilise the presidential campaign. Within the RN, several senior figures have come out in support of him.
Beyond the far right, reactions have been more critical. On Wednesday, President Emmanuel Macron described the remarks attributed to Bardella as "extremely serious and unacceptable", calling on the RN to clarify the situation.
