World

Tens of thousands of Italians marched through Rome on Saturday calling for peace in Ukraine and urging Italy to stop sending of weapons to fight the Russian invasion.

“No to war. No to sending weapons”, read one large banner carried by protesters, as a vast crowd broke into cries of “give peace a chance”.

NATO founding member Italy has supported Ukraine from the start of the war, including providing it with arms.

New far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said that will not change and the government has said it is expecting to send more weapons soon.

But some, including former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, have said Italy should be stepping up negotiations instead.

The peace rally was attended by some 30,000 people, Rome police told Italian media.

“The weapons were sent at the beginning on the grounds that this would prevent an escalation,” demonstrator Roberto Zanotto told AFP.

“Nine months later and it seems to me that there’s been an escalation. Look at the facts: sending weapons does not help stop a war, weapons help fuel a war.”

Student Sara Gianpietro said the conflict was being dragged out by arming Ukraine, which “has economic consequences for our country, but for the respect of human rights too”.

The Group of Seven foreign ministers, including Italy, on Friday vowed to continue supporting Ukraine in the fight against Russia.

Two climate activists on Saturday each glued a hand to the frames of two paintings by Spanish master Francisco Goya at the Prado museum in Madrid, police said.

The protest did not damage either painting, but the protesters scrawled “+1,5°C” on the wall between the two artworks in reference to the Paris Agreement target of capping warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Both activists were detained, police said.

Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion posted a video online showing the two activists each with a hand fixed on a painting before the museum’s security officials move in.

The group said the two artworks in question were “The Naked Maja” and “The Clothed Maja”.

The action was a protest in the face of rising world temperatures which will “provoke an unstable climate with serious consequences for all the planet”, the group said in a statement in Spanish.

It is the latest in a number of similar protests by climate activists targeting famous artworks in European cities.

On Friday, a group splashed pea soup onto a Vincent van Gogh masterpiece in Rome.

“The Sower”, an 1888 painting by the Dutch artist depicting a farmer sowing his land under a dominating sun, was exhibited behind glass and undamaged.

Four activists were arrested, according to news reports.

The climate activists from Last Generation called their protest “a desperate and scientifically grounded cry that cannot be understood as mere vandalism”.

They warned the protest would continue until more attention was paid to climate change.

Other actions have seen cake or mashed potatoes used in recent weeks.

They have targeted masterpieces such as the “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre in Paris or “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer at The Hague’s Mauritshuis museum.

In October, the group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup over Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery.

All of those paintings were covered by glass and were undamaged.

Children rescued in the Mediterranean must be allowed to disembark in a safe port, charities said Saturday, as a stand-off with Italy over migrant arrivals intensified.

There are four humanitarian ships carrying rescued migrants currently requesting permission to dock safely in Italy as conditions at sea worsen in bad weather.

“We have a lot of babies on board, as well as women with children. We urgently need to be assigned a port,” Hermione Poschmann from German charity Mission Lifeline, which runs the Rise Above rescue vessel, told AFP.

Italy’s new far-right government, which was sworn in last month, has vowed to crack down on boat migrants fleeing North Africa for Europe.

The German vessel Rise Above, which rescued 95 people in three operations Thursday, is carrying 42 minors including eight babies, the smallest of which are just seven and 10-months old.

“The situation will continue to worsen due to the enormous psychological strain on the people on board,” mission head Clemens Ledwa said.

Between them the four vessels — the Rise Above, Humanity 1, Ocean Viking and Geo Barents — are carrying over 1,000 people saved in the Mediterranean.

Italy said Friday it would allow Humanity 1, run by German charity SOS Humanity and carrying 179 migrants, into its national waters so that Italian authorities could carry out medical checks.

– ‘Undoubtedly illegal’ –

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Italy would take in minors and women who were pregnant or who had young children, but the ship would then have to “remove” the remaining migrants from Italian territorial waters.

But Lukas Kaldenhoff from SOS Humanity said the charity had received “no communication whatsoever from the Italian authorities” about health checks, nor had it been assigned a port.

The Humanity 1 entered Italian waters overnight to seek shelter.

“Over 100 of the 179 people on board are minors, including a seven-month old baby”, Kaldenhoff told AFP.

Mirka Schafer, the charity’s advocacy officer, said in a statement that the government’s decision to only take some people was “undoubtedly illegal”.

“The survivors fled Libya, where they were exposed to human rights violations such as torture. As refugees, they are clearly in a vulnerable state, some of them visibly traumatised.

“Those rescued must be allowed to go ashore immediately, where their medical and psychological care can be ensured, and they can exercise their right to apply for international protection,” she added.

The ship was off the coast of Catania in Sicily on Saturday, as was Rise Above, which had also sought shelter, according to Poschmann.

The 25-metres long vessel “is a small, fast responder, not made for a long stand-off”, Poschmann said.

The ship usually transfers those it rescues to the bigger charity vessels, but they have no space for them.

A photographer on the Ocean Viking, run by SOS Mediteranee, told AFP conditions at sea “are worsening, and we are expecting more rain”.

“Those on board are not well because they are sea-sick, children included”, he said, adding that there were 57 minors among the 234 migrants.

The Geo Barrents, run by Doctors Without Borders and currently carrying 572 rescued people, said Saturday it had also entered Italian waters to seek shelter “after requesting and receiving permission from the authorities”.

“We have been waiting for more than 10 days for a safe landing place,” mission head Juan Matias Gil said.

Russian police on Saturday detained two people, including the suspected perpetrator, after a fire killed at least 13 people at a bar in the historic city of Kostroma.

Russian emergency services told state television that 13 people were killed, denying earlier media reports that 15 people had died. 

Fire fighters fought through the early hours to extinguish the blaze at the popular Poligon bar in the city, which is around 300 kilometres (180 miles) northeast of Moscow.

Russian agencies reported that the fire could have started after a drunk man fired a “flare gun” on the dance floor.

“Police officers identified and detained the suspect (behind) unlawful acts in an entertainment establishment in the city of Kostroma, which resulted in a fire and the death of people,” Russian police said.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said he was aged 23. 

It later said a second person was detained, a woman who acted as an organisational director of the bar, in a criminal case on the failure to meet safety requirements.

The RIA Novosti news agency said the bar belonged to a local deputy of the ruling United Russia party, Ikhtiyar Mirzoyev.

Kostroma, a city on the Volga river of around 230,000 people, is one of Russia’s oldest cities and famous for its medieval architecture and monasteries.

Authorities published images from inside the burnt-out building, showing the bar with a collapsed roof, burnt-out walls and near total destruction inside.

– ‘Flare gun’ –

State television aired night-time images of the bar — housed in a single-storey logistical centre — engulfed in flames.

Authorities said the fire started at around 2:00 am local time (2300 GMT Saturday) and was put out at around 7:30 am.

They declared an official mourning in the region for Monday. State flags would be lowered in the region and entertainment events cancelled, the regional administration announced. 

TASS news agency, citing emergency service sources, said a drunk man with a “flare gun” was likely to have caused the fire.  

“He was spending time in the bar with a woman, ordered her flowers, with a flare gun in his hands,” the source told the agency.

“Then he went to the dance floor and fired it.”

Emergency services said the blaze engulfed more than 3,500 square meters (37,700 square feet).

Around 250 people were evacuated from the building after it caught fire, authorities said.

Some local media, quoting witnesses, said here was panic when the fire started as people rushed to an exit, causing a jam. One man forced a closed door open, possibly saving lives, according to reports.

– Lax safety –

On its website, Poligon says it acts as an evening and night-time “place for recreation and entertainment”.

By day, it is a typical Russian “stolovaya” — a casual restaurant serving traditional food.

It says it is housed in a “distribution centre” and is popular with traffic police.  

State television showed images of dozens of emergency workers fighting the inferno.

The sign “Poligon” was visible amid the flames raging on its roof.

One fire fighter told state television that it took 50 people to extinguish the blaze and that they had used 20 fire engines.  

He said the fire was especially difficult to put out because of a risk that the building might collapse.

Russia, which frequently has a lax approach to safety rules, has seen a number of deadly fires at entertainment venues in recent years.

In 2018, a fire killed 60 people in a shopping mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo.

In 2009, another blaze at a nightclub in the Urals city of Perm killed 156 people. 

Iran admitted for the first time on Saturday that it had sent drones to Russia but insisted they were supplied to its ally before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Russia of using Iranian-made drones in recent weeks to carry out attacks in Ukraine. 

Tehran has repeatedly denied the claims but on Saturday Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was quoted as saying that drones had been sent to Russia before the invasion began in late February.

“We supplied Russia with a limited number of drones months before the war in Ukraine,” the official news agency IRNA quoted Amir-Abdollahian as saying.

For weeks, Russian forces have rained missiles and explosive drones onto Ukraine infrastructure, as a major Ukrainian ground offensive — propelled by Western arms deliveries — has pushed Russian troops back in swathes of the country.

Russian strikes over the past month have destroyed around a third of Ukraine’s power stations and the government has urged Ukrainians to conserve electricity as much as possible.

Ukraine’s state energy company on Saturday announced additional power rationing in Kyiv and several other regions of the country.

“In a telephone conversation with the Ukrainian foreign minister last week, we agreed that if there was evidence (of Moscow’s use of Iranian drones), he would provide it to us,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

“If the Ukrainian side keeps its promise, we can discuss this issue in the coming days and we will take into account their evidence,” he added.

And he again denied Iran had supplied missiles to Russia, calling the accusations “completely false”.

In response Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesman warned Iran Saturday in a post on Facebook that “the consequences of complicity” with Moscow would be “greater than the benefit from Russia’s support.”

– ‘Deportations’ – 

Kyiv claims around 400 Iranian drones have already been used against the civilian population of Ukraine and that Moscow has ordered around 2,000.

Britain and the European Union have imposed sanctions on three Iranian generals and an arms firm accused of supplying Russia with drones.

Ukrainian and Russian forces appear to be gearing up for a fierce battle in Kherson, a southern city with a population of around 288,000 people before the conflict.

It was the first major Ukrainian city to fall to Russian forces after the Moscow invasion.

Russia has been pulling civilians out of the Kherson region, with President Vladimir Putin saying residents must be “removed” from danger zones. 

But Kyiv has likened the departures to Soviet-style “deportations” of its people.

The Ukrainian presidency has accused the Russians of “trying to identify residents who refuse to be evacuated” to Moscow-occupied areas further away from the front line.

A judge in a Ukrainian town controlled by Moscow was in a “serious” condition after surviving an assassination attempt, a separatist leader in Donetsk said Saturday.

– ‘Ready to fight’ – 

Blaming Kyiv, the rebel leader of the self-proclaimed republic, Denis Pushilin, said on Telegram that the attack took place on Friday evening in the town of Vuhlehirsk, in the eastern Donetsk region.

Pushilin said the judge had been “giving sentences to Nazi war criminals,” referring to the terminology for Ukrainians used by the Kremlin to justify its invasion of Ukraine. 

“His condition is assessed by doctors to be stable but serious,” Pushilin added.

Meanwhile, at a remote outpost in northern Ukraine, a border guard scanned the horizon to the border with Russia and Belarus just a few kilometres to the north.

“Our main objective is to prevent a (new) invasion. But if that happens again here, we’ll be ready to stop the enemy at the border and prevent them from coming in,” the 33-year-old told AFP, not giving his name.

Inside the well-fortified dugout that was set up after the Russian pullback in April, a border guard in his 30s who goes by the nickname “Lynx” says he thinks there’s a “50-50 chance” of a new Russian offensive. 

“The likelihood of an attack will always be high here near the border, with a neighbour like that,” he says, a machine gun slung over his shoulder. 

But some 30 kilometres to the south in Gorodnia — the first town occupied by the Russians on the first morning of the invasion — Mayor Andriy Bogdan told AFP the situation “is completely different” from what it was back then when his town was “almost completely unprotected”. 

“We are relying on our border guards and all our defence forces. Today they are here and ready to fight,” Bogdan says. 

Iranian students protested and shopkeepers went on strike Saturday despite a widening crackdown, according to reports on social media, as demonstrations that flared over Mahsa Amini’s death entered an eighth week.

The clerical state has been gripped by protests that erupted when Amini, 22, died in custody after her arrest for an alleged breach of Iran’s strict dress code for women.

As the working week got underway, security forces adopted new measures to halt protests at universities in Tehran, searching students and forcing them to remove facemasks, activists said.

But demonstrators were heard chanting “I am a free woman, you are the pervert” at Islamic Azad University of Mashhad, in northeastern Iran, in a video published by BBC Persian.

“A student dies, but doesn’t accept humiliation,” sang students at Gilan University in the northern city of Rasht, in footage posted online by an activist. AFP was unable to immediately verify the videos.

In the northwestern city of Qazvin, dozens chanted similar slogans at a mourning ceremony 40 days after the death of demonstrator Javad Heydari — a custom that has fuelled further protest flashpoints.

The Norway-based Hengaw rights group said people were observing a “widespread strike” in Amini’s home town of Saqez, in Kurdistan province, where shops were shuttered.

A video aired later by Manoto, a television channel based abroad and banned in Iran, appeared to show students locked inside Islamic Azad University in north Tehran.

– ‘Massacre’ –

Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights said Saturday that at least 186 people have been killed in the protest crackdown, a rise of 10 from Wednesday.

It said another 118 people had lost their lives in separate protests since September 30 in Sistan-Baluchistan, a mainly Sunni Muslim province in the southeast, on the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

An official in Kerman province admitted the authorities were having trouble quelling the protests that erupted after Amini’s death on September 16.

“The restrictions on the internet, the arrest of the leaders of the riots and the presence of the state in the streets always eliminated sedition, but this type of sedition and its audience are different,” Rahman Jalali, political and security deputy for the province, was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.

In a flare-up in Sistan-Baluchistan, up to 10 people, including children, were killed Friday by security forces in the city of Khash, Amnesty International said.

Molavi Abdol Hamid, the cleric who leads Friday prayers in Sistan-Baluchistan’s capital Zahedan, condemned the Khash “massacre” that he said had killed 16 people.

Videos verified by AFP show people running for cover as bursts of gunfire are heard in Khash and Zahedan.

Iran has sought to portray the protest movement as a plot hatched by its arch-enemy the United States.

– US downplays Biden remarks –

Ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi on Friday dismissed a pledge by his US counterpart Joe Biden to “free Iran”, retorting that Iran had already been freed by the overthrow of the Western-backed shah in 1979.

“Our young men and young women are determined and we will never allow you to carry out your satanic desires,” he told a gathering commemorating the November 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran by radical students.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby played down the American leader’s remarks.

“The president was expressing our solidarity with the protesters as he’s been doing, quite frankly, from the very outset,” Kirby told reporters.

Asked whether the Biden administration thought Iran’s regime could soon fall, he said: “I don’t believe we have indications of that kind.”

On Friday, the world’s largest cryptocurrency platform, Binance, acknowledged funds belonging to or intended for Iranians had flowed through its service and may have run afoul of US sanctions.

“Earlier in the week, we discovered that Binance interacted” with “bad actors” using Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges, said Chagri Poyraz, head of sanctions at Binance.

Some of these users “attempted to move crypto through Binance’s exchange,” he wrote on a blog on the company’s website. “As soon as we discovered this, we moved to freeze transfers (and) block accounts.”

No Iranian cryptocurrency platforms are currently under sanctions. But US-imposed restrictions prohibit a US entity or US national from selling goods and services to Iranian residents, businesses or institutions. The ban includes financial services.

burs-dv/kir

Russian police on Saturday detained a man suspected to have caused a huge fire overnight at a bar in the historic city of Kostroma that killed at least 15 people.

Fire fighters fought through the early hours to extinguish the blaze at the popular Poligon bar in the city, which is around 300 kilometres (180 miles) northeast of Moscow.

Russian agencies reported that the fire could have started after a drunk man fired a “flare gun” on the dance floor.

“Police officers identified and detained the suspect (behind) unlawful acts in an entertainment establishment in the city of Kostroma, which resulted in a fire and the death of people,” Russian police said.

“He has now been handed over to investigative authorities,” it added, without providing any further details.

Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case of “causing death by negligence”. 

It published images from inside the burnt-out building, showing a barely recognisable bar with some visible stickers of beer brands. The bar had a collapsed roof and burnt-out walls, with near total destruction inside.

State television aired night-time images of the bar — housed in a single-storey logistical centre — engulfed in flames. 

Authorities said the fire started at around 2:00 am local time (2300 GMT Saturday) and was put out at around 7:30 am.

Kostroma regional governor Sergei Sitnikov said 13 people were killed.

– ‘Flare gun’ –

“Two more bodies were recovered. This means the number of victims is now 15,” the TASS news agency later quoted law enforcement sources as saying. 

Around 250 people were evacuated from the building when it caught fire, authorities said earlier.

TASS, citing emergency service sources, said a drunk man with a “flare gun” was likely to have caused the fire.  

“He was spending time in the bar with a woman, ordered her flowers, with a flare gun in his hands,” the source told the agency.

“Then he went to the dance floor and fired it.”

Emergency services said the blaze engulfed more than 3,500 square meters (37,700 square feet).

Some local media, quoting witnesses, said here was panic when the fire started as people rushed to an exit, causing a jam. One man forced a closed door open, possibly saving lives, according to reports.

The RIA Novosti news agency said the bar belonged to a local deputy of the ruling United Russia party, Ikhtiyar Mirzoyev.

He told the agency that he would “give all the necessary help to the families and loved ones of the dead.”

On its website, Poligon says it acts as an evening and night-time “place for recreation and entertainment”.

– Lax safety –

By day, it is a typical Russian “stolovaya” — a casual restaurant serving traditional food.

It says it is housed in a “distribution centre” and is popular with traffic police.  

State television showed images of dozens of emergency workers fighting the inferno.

The sign “Poligon” was visible amid the flames raging on its roof.

One fire fighter told state television that it took 50 people to extinguish the blaze and that they had used 20 fire engines.  

He said the fire was especially difficult to put out because of a risk that the building might collapse.

Kostroma, a city on the Volga river of around 230,000 people, is one of Russia’s oldest cities and famous for its medieval architecture and monasteries.

Russia, which frequently has a lax approach to safety rules, has seen a number of deadly fires at entertainment venues in recent years.

In 2018, a fire killed 60 people in a shopping mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo.

In 2009, another blaze at a nightclub in the Urals city of Perm killed 156 people. 

Iranian students protested and shopkeepers went on strike Saturday despite a widening crackdown, according to reports on social media, as demonstrations that flared over Mahsa Amini’s death entered an eighth week.

The clerical state has been gripped by protests that erupted when Amini, 22, died in custody after her arrest for an alleged breach of Iran’s strict dress code for women.

As the working week got underway, security forces adopted new measures to halt protests at  universities in the capital Tehran on Saturday, searching students and forcing them to remove facemasks, activists said.

But students were seen demonstrating and chanting “I am a free woman, you are the pervert” at Islamic Azad University of Mashhad, in northeast Iran, in a video published by BBC Persian.

“A student dies, but doesn’t accept humiliation,” sang students at Gilan University in the northern city of Rasht, in footage posted online by an activist. AFP was unable to immediately verify the videos.

In the northwestern city of Qazvin, dozens were heard chanting similar slogans at a mourning ceremony 40 days after the death of protester Javad Heydari.

The Norway-based Hengaw rights group said people were observing a “widespread strike” in Amini’s home town of Saqez, in Kurdistan province, where shops were shuttered.

“Our weapon is our unity, our weapon is our rage, our weapon is our resistance… You cannot stand against the will of people,” tweeted Hassan Ronaghi, the brother of prominent rights campaigner Hossein.

– ‘Massacre’ –

Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights said Wednesday that at least 176 people have been killed by the security forces in the protest crackdown.

It said another 101 people had lost their lives in separate protests since September 30 in Sistan-Baluchistan, a mainly Sunni Muslim province in the southeast of the country.

An official in Kerman province admitted the authorities were having trouble quelling the protests that first broke out after Amini’s death on September 16.

“The restrictions on the internet, the arrest of the leaders of the riots and the presence of the state in the streets always eliminated sedition, but this type of sedition and its audience are different,” Rahman Jalali, political and security deputy for the province, was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.

In a flare-up in Sistan-Baluchistan, up to 10 people, including children, were killed Friday by security forces in the city of Khash, Amnesty International said.

Molavi Abdol Hamid, the cleric who leads Friday prayers in Sistan-Baluchistan’s capital Zahedan, in a statement condemned the incident in Khash as a “massacre” that he said killed 16 people.

A video verified by AFP shows youths running for cover and screaming as bursts of gunfire are heard on a road in Khash.

Ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi on Friday dismissed a pledge by his US counterpart Joe Biden to “free Iran”.

Campaigning for mid-term elections, Biden had said: “Don’t worry we’re gonna free Iran. They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon.”

– US downplays Biden remarks –

Raisi retorted that Iran had already been freed by the overthrow of the Western-backed shah in 1979.

“Our young men and young women are determined and we will never allow you to carry out your satanic desires,” he told a gathering commemorating the November 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran by radical students.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Friday played down the American leader’s remarks.

“The president was expressing our solidarity with the protesters as he’s been doing, quite frankly, from the very outset,” Kirby told reporters.

Asked whether the Biden administration thought the Iranian regime could soon fall, he said: “I don’t believe we have indications of that kind”.

On Friday, the world’s largest cryptocurrency platform, Binance, acknowledged funds belonging to or intended for Iranians had flowed through its service and may have run afoul of US sanctions.

“Earlier in the week, we discovered that Binance interacted” with “bad actors” using Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges, said Chagri Poyraz, head of sanctions at Binance.

Some of these users “attempted to move crypto through Binance’s exchange,” he wrote on a blog on the company’s website. “As soon as we discovered this, we moved to freeze transfers (and) block accounts.”

No Iranian cryptocurrency platforms are currently under sanctions. But US-imposed restrictions prohibit a US entity or US national from selling goods and services to Iranian residents, businesses or institutions. The ban includes financial services.

burs-dv/dwo

Jordan Bardella, a self-confident 27-year-old, saw his status as rising star of the far right confirmed on Saturday, after party members elected him to succeed veteran leader Marine Le Pen as head of the National Rally.

The Paris-born politician was the odds-on favourite to take over the party after Le Pen decided to step back from the role after 11 years at the helm.

Formerly known as the National Front, the party had been run by Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie for 40 years before that.

Bardella is now the first party chief outside the family dynasty in a half-century.

“The fact the party president will not have the name Le Pen is the sign of openness and confidence that Marine has in the new generation,” Bardella told AFP during a recent trip to eastern France.

Not that the ultra-loyal protege, who was elected to the European parliament in 2019, is planning to try to overshadow her.

“I am a continuity candidate, with the aim of building on the incredible legacy that Marine is handing over,” he added.

He expects and wants Le Pen to take a fourth run at the presidency in 2027 after her record 41.5 percent in April’s election run-off against President Emmanuel Macron.

She then fronted the party’s parliamentary election campaign in June, which saw the RN capture 89 seats, a 10-fold rise, making it the biggest opposition party in the lower-house National Assembly.

– ‘Drug dealers’ – 

His only opponent was Louis Aliot, the mayor of the southwestern city of Perpignan, who has been unable to match Bardella’s public profile despite being a party member for more than 30 years.

Le Pen’s 32-year-old niece Marion Marechal, long seen as the eventual family successor, is out of the picture, having left the party before the presidential vote to back rival far-right candidate Eric Zemmour.

Bardella had been acting president since September 2021 when Le Pen stepped back during her presidential campaign.

“He’s got everything right and is respected by everyone,” far-right member of parliament Laurent Jacobelli told AFP at a mid-October campaign stop at Hayange in the Moselle region. 

“And he knows how to make different people work together, so why would we change anything?”

At the event, Bardella spoke confidently on stage, without notes, for 40 minutes, sharing details about his childhood on the eighth floor of a drab tower block in the crime-ridden Seine-Saint-Denis area northeast of Paris.

He lived with his mother, an Italian immigrant and single mother.

“Every day from my window and when I entered the building I would see that there were drug dealers checking if you were from the police,” he said.

There was also an Islamic school across the road, he said. 

“I used to see groups of girls aged five, six or seven leaving with veils over their heads,” he added.

Personal harassment and riots in 2005, led by mostly black and north African youths angry about police violence, pushed him to join Le Pen’s party aged just 16.

“I got involved in politics very early because I didn’t want the whole of France to resemble what I had experienced,” he told the crowd.

– ‘Jordan, President! – 

Bardella likes to emphasise that he is from a new generation of nationalists with little in common with the racist, anti-Semitic thuggery associated with Jean-Marie Le Pen and the National Front.

Marine Le Pen has gone to great lengths to try to distance herself from this toxic legacy, though critics say racism remains rife at the grassroots level and accuse Le Pen of simply spinning old ideas with new language.

Bardella is the image of the clean-cut and controlled modern party that she now promotes: conspicuously neat, always dressed in immaculate shirts, polished shoes, with hair cut short.  

“Without Jean-Marie Le Pen, the National Front wouldn’t exist, but without Marine it wouldn’t still be here,” Bardella told AFP.

“She transformed it from having a protest culture to having a culture of government.”

– ‘Step aside’ –

Opponents from within the party, including Aliot, have expressed discomfort with an alleged readiness to embrace ideas espoused by Le Pen’s far-right rival the pundit Eric Zemmour.

Last year, Bardella came close to embracing Zemmour’s mantra of the “Great Replacement”, a conspiracy theory that suggests white Europeans are being deliberately replaced by immigrants.

He also hastily backtracked from a plan to attend a demonstration organised by Zemmour’s party after the killing of a 12-year-old by an Algerian woman facing expulsion shocked France.

There are also questions over what value the presidency of the RN has for Bardella, given Le Pen formally leads its cohort in parliament and is widely expected to be its presidential candidate in 2027.

But many expect the party position to be a stepping stone.

“At some point Marine will step aside and he’s got every chance,” said Alice Orsudci, a 52-year-old business owner watching his campaign tour.

“I don’t know if we’re allowed to say it, and I don’t want to flatter him, but I sincerely believe Jordan will be president one day,” said member of parliament Jacobelli.