Soft-focus interview positions Bardella as leader-in-waiting of France's far-right

By Elizabeth Pineau

PARIS (Reuters) - Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old wunderkind of France's far right National Rally (RN), says he grew up wanting to be Superman, or James Bond. These days, he dreams of marrying a tall brunette with a strong personality.

Bardella was profiled on "An Intimate Ambition", a Sunday night primetime TV show short on tough political questions but long on the kind of personal vignettes that could broaden his appeal for 2027, when he could well be the RN's presidential candidate at the expense of his mentor, Marine Le Pen.

She and Bardella have forged one of France's most formidable political tag teams in recent years, fusing her experience with his youthful drive to transform the once-taboo RN into France's largest single parliamentary party.

But the woman once widely seen as a front-runner for 2027 has seen her chances of contesting a fourth presidential election collapse after receiving a five-year political ban in March for party financing offences.

She has appealed and insists she remains the RN's 2027 candidate. But Bardella, who spearheaded the RN's parliamentary election campaign last year, has been quick to say he will run if she cannot, and the French press has been awash with speculation about a rift.

Stephane Rozes, head of the political consultancy Cap, said Le Pen's ban had boosted the RN's free-market wing, who prefer Bardella's pro-business views to her more statist, socially oriented policies.

"The uncertainties surrounding the candidacy have sharpened the differences in approach," Rozes said.

Audience data suggested over a million people watched Sunday's show, which presented a softer, more approachable version of Bardella, featuring teary chats with his parents and workouts in the gym.

Recent trips to the United States, Israel and Abu Dhabi appear designed to counter suggestions that Bardella lacks foreign policy experience.

REAL OR IMAGINED, LE PEN-BARDELLA RIVALRY LOOMS 

Several opinion polls taken since Le Pen's conviction have put her neck-and-neck with Bardella in a putative 2027 first-round vote, suggesting voters do not view her as irreplaceable. 

Le Pen has become increasingly prickly about Bardella. Last week, during a visit to the restive French overseas territory of New Caledonia, she sneered: "I'm not sure Jordan knows New Caledonia's problems very well."

"I assure you," Bardella replied the same day, "I understand the overseas issues very well."

RN officials dismiss talk of tensions.

"The media are on the lookout for a statement from Marine or Jordan to support the story they're imagining," said RN lawmaker and spokesperson Laurent Jacobelli. "They support each other, and I don't think the rumours affect our leaders."

Louis Aliot, RN mayor of the southern city of Perpignan, said Le Pen's focus on New Caledonia demonstrated how they complemented each other.

"Marine has been following the New Caledonia situation for almost 20 years," he said. "Jordan has never been there. That means he doesn't know it like she does."

But while RN officials deny the idea of a rift in private too, they acknowledge Le Pen may be unable to overturn her ban, and say Bardella would be a formidable candidate.

"Either can win," said a senior RN official, declining to be named.

In "An Intimate Ambition", which was filmed before Le Pen's conviction, Bardella was coy about 2027, but less so about his competitiveness in sport.

"I really like to win," he said. "I don't like to lose."

(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Kevin Liffey)