France’s far-right chief Jordan Bardella wants Ukraine to pay for Europe’s help

• Jordan Bardella wants France to demand guarantees from Ukraine for military and financial support due to France's economic difficulties.
• He suggests Ukraine should buy defence equipment from European countries that support it and praises US demands for returns.
• Bardella aligns with Trump-style patriotism, criticises EU regulations, and aims to boost France's tech competitiveness, especially in artificial intelligence.

PARIS – Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally party, said France’s unconditional support for Ukraine should be replaced by a more transactional relationship with the embattled country.

France’s tattered finances require squeezing a return in exchange for its military assistance to Kyiv, which has been resisting a Russian onslaught for more than four years, said the 30-year-old who is a likely prime minister if Marine Le Pen wins 2027’s presidential vote.

“We are drowning in debt. We are drowning in deficits. And it is irresponsible to make spending commitments and promises of financial support to a country without any guarantees,” Bardella told Bloomberg TV on Sept 5 at the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, Italy. 

“Everything needs to be reviewed,” Bardella said.

He praised the US for demanding that Ukraine give something in return for support, mentioning access to rare-earths in the guarantees for the loans and resources. 

He said France wouldn’t abandon Ukraine should Le Pen, the National Rally’s candidate to succeed President Emmanuel Macron triumph.

But he suggested that Ukraine could guarantee that the financial support it gets from European countries is used to purchase equipment exclusively from the defence industry in those states.

Le Pen consistently tops surveys for first-round voting intentions, causing fears among Ukraine allies that the military, economic and political support provided by Macron could be at risk. 

Le Pen once had close links to Russia.

She met Vladimir Putin in 2017 shortly before the presidential election that she lost to Macron for the first time.

It is unclear how many times they met; her party got a loan from a Russian bank to finance that campaign, money that has since been repaid.

Ties have cooled since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

Ties with Trump

Bardella’s comments came as Putin ordered Kremlin troops not to fire on Kyiv for three days, during the visit to Moscow of US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Interfax. 

Macron has sought to coordinate the European response to Moscow’s war on Ukraine and raise France’s standing as a stalwart ally and leader of the West.

Bardella, in contrast, described a world view and policy portfolio more in line with US President Donald Trump.

In a nod to the 80-year-old US president and the US technology giants whose influence the European Union has sought to curb, Bardella criticised EU regulations.

He said France could use its abundant nuclear energy sources to attract the data centres needed for artificial intelligence.

“What I do not want is for France to fall behind in a way that would undermine its competitiveness in new technologies in the coming years,” he said.

“We have in France the best AI researchers. So we need to recreate the conditions for an economic ecosystem that supports the development of our startups, such as Mistral, as well as everyone who wants to invest in artificial intelligence.”

Bardella, who arrived in Italy from Britain, where he spoke to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party conference in Birmingham, sees the prospect of continued ties with like-minded leaders in the US.

“Donald Trump, like many of the world’s major leaders today, speaks the language of power, sovereignty and the defence of the national interest,” Bardella said.

“And it is precisely because we both speak the language of patriotism and of defending our respective countries that we are capable of having constructive discussions.”

“We are moving towards a world that, in reality, respects only strength. We have to recognise that and take it into account,” Bardella said, adding that leaders who display weakness or naivete will be crushed by great powers. BLOOMBERG