Kelly Betesh, the Jewish ex-girlfriend of National Rally (RN) President Jordan Bardella, has come out against the anti-Semitism accusations targeting him, saying she would have never been with him if he was what his opponents say he was.
Bardella was accused by the left-wing investigative French outlet Mediapart on September 28 of having made anti-Semitic remarks in 2013.
It claimed it “got its hands on compromising exchanges”. This was picked up by international media across the globe and commented on by his political opponents as France is readying itself for high-stakes presidential elections in 2027.
These include statements such as “The Jew has to dominate other peoples, crush them and rob them”, “All the banks are owned by Jews”, and “What they want is a new world order dominated by Israel, with of course Jerusalem as its capital.”
Now, Betesh, who dated Jordan Bardella when he was 17 — the age Mediapart assigns to messages it calls anti-Semitic — has said there is nothing anti-Semitic about him.
She posted the line on the evening of September 29 as the National Rally president’s lawyers prepared a defamation suit against the investigative site.
“Since I’ve been receiving so many messages about this, I’d rather respond just once and publicly. I was in a relationship with Jordan for two years, precisely during the period in question. We spent most of our time together, either with friends or at political events,” she wrote on X.
“I have never heard him make a single anti-Semitic remark, nor express any beliefs along those lines. And, for obvious reasons, I simply could not have shared my life with him if that had been the case,” Betesh added.
“As for those who prefer to recycle the same old controversies rather than do real journalism: Perhaps it’s time to refresh their repertoire. By constantly rehashing the same stories, even the controversy ends up losing its heat.”
Betesh works as a midwife, describes herself as a sovereignist and backs Marine Le Pen for 2027.
Je conteste formellement les accusations de Mediapart.
En matière de lutte contre l'antisémitisme, je n'ai aucune leçon à recevoir d'un journal dont le fondateur a tenu des propos de soutien à des terroristes qui ont assassiné des athlètes israéliens lors des JO à Munich. pic.twitter.com/s07XSi3Sie
— Jordan Bardella (@J_Bardella) September 29, 2026
Next to the support of his Jewish ex-girlfriend, Bardella also received support from Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Anti-Semitism Amichai Chikli, who set out his defence on X on September 29.
Chikli first pointed out that Mediapart, “the paper smearing Jordan Bardella over words he allegedly wrote, at age 17”, was founded by Edwy Plenel, who ran the paper until 2024.
Chikli stressed that Plenel “stood with the men who murdered eleven Israeli athletes in Munich” at the 1972 Olympic Games and that his successor, Carine Fouteau, called Israel a colonial state, guilty of genocide.
He contrasted this with Bardella, who “is one of the clearest voices in Europe against Hamas”, visited the site of the Nova music festival massacre and met with survivors. Bardella also “spoke in Jerusalem against anti-Semitism”.
“He was already in Washington when Steve Bannon made a gesture that looked like a Nazi salute. Bardella cancelled his speech on the spot.”
According to Chikli, “Like the leftists in Israel, the leftists in France are experts at character assassination.”
“We have zero trust in people who spend their adult lives fighting the right of the small Jewish state to exist. And we are done taking the word of anyone whose heart once filled with admiration for the men who murdered our athletes on German soil.”
Bardella himself denied the accusations. On September 28 he told CNews that the remarks attributed to him were “delusional”.
He said they were organised, dirty tricks.
The authors of this article, he said, are “like many left-wing journalists, blinded by the hatred they carry for the National Rally.
“I ask the French to be extremely cautious about all these destabilisation operations and to understand that when we are designated as political opponents by Mediapart and by the far-left press, in reality, they are millions of French people who would like to prevent us from being able to express themselves democratically in the ballot box.”
Bardella said his political camp “will naturally use the lever of justice to defend (his) honour.”
Addressing RN parliamentarians on September 29, he called the affair an attempt at political assassination and said it marked the beginnings of a total war against his party.
RN deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy said the source of the allegations was disaffected members of the party who had been expelled years ago because of their anti-Semitic ideas.
His party called Mediapart a left-wing outlet that published false content. It said the article was a well-timed political attack.
Mediapart says it spent months authenticating private conversations from 2013 to 2015, when Bardella was a young Front National activist. It did not name the recipients or the platform.
Its co-head of investigations, Fabrice Arfi, said the site was certain of what it had published and had the means to prove it, both in court and in public.
The New York Times was shown some of the material in Mediapart‘s offices but could not independently confirm the messages, because the site is protecting its source.
