Paris Match - the French equivalent of Hello magazine - claimed to have "stumbled upon" Bardella, 30, and Princess Maria Carolina de Bourbon des Deux-Siciles, 22, in Corsica at the start of the month.
🚨 À la une de 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗦 𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗖𝗛 cette semaine.
— Paris Match (@ParisMatch) April 8, 2026
📌 Jordan Bardella et Maria Carolina de Boubon des Deux-Siciles : l’idylle que personne n’attendait.
👉 Photos exclusives de leur escapade en Corse.
📌 Iran : l’incroyable sauvetage du pilote américain.
📌 Angleterre : la… pic.twitter.com/wk08ZJauo4
The leader of the anti-immigration, eurosceptic Rassemblement National (RN) party had been photographed with the duchess of Calabria and Palermo at several high-profile events in January.
Bardella could run for France's top job next year when Emmanuel Macron steps down if his mentor, three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, is barred from office over a fraud conviction.
Commentators were fast to interpret the latest pictures as part of a pre-election attempt at softening Bardella's image - similar to the many photos that were published of Marine Le Pen and her pet cats ahead of the 2022 election.
"It's one more step in building his image after a nationwide tour to promote his book," said Philippe Moreau Chevrolet, a communications professor at Sciences Po.
"This is the beginning of a story that will be fed over time and will turn into a serial. Soon we'll be getting other covers about holidays and dinners in town," he added.
Bardella was -- like other politicians before him -- likely seeking to push "a narrative that humanises him and reassures people about his ability to commit," he said.
"Will his voters buy into the fairy tale of the descendant of Italian immigrants who's dating a princess? Or will they say 'he's betraying us to join the jet set'? We don't know," he said.
Left-wing lawmaker Alexis Corbière decried what he thought was "a new stage in the normalisation of the far right".
Maria Carolina on her website presents herself as a model with humanitarian interests who was brought up between Monte Carlo, Paris and Rome.
She says she was home-schooled and speaks Italian, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian.
Bardella is the grandson of Italian immigrants. He grew up in the low-income Paris suburb of Drancy and likes to present himself as 'the boy from the ghetto', although his father reportedly bought him both a car and an apartment when he was in his 20s.
Bardella dropped out of university in order to work full time for the Front National (since re-named Rassemblement National). He dated Marine Le Pen's niece Nolwenn Olivier between 2020 and 2024 and rose rapidly within the party, becoming Le pen's deputy in 2017.
Le Pen has already said that he will be the party's candidate in the 2027 presidential elections if she fails to overturn her ban on standing for office, imposed after she was convicted of embezzling public funds in 2025. Her appeal hearing is scheduled for July.
High-profile politicians have long turned to the pages of Paris Match which is renowned for its glossy 'at home' style photoshoots and soft-soap interviews.
Former president Nicolas Sarkozy gave the magazine an interview in 2007 before he was elected.
François Hollande also graced the front cover with his then partner journalist Valerie Trierweiler before he was elected in 2012.
A scandal erupted a few years later when another French glossy magazine said the president routinely hopped on a scooter to meet his mistress, actor Julie Gayet, whom he later married.
Macron and his wife Brigitte posed for Paris Match in 2016, before he was elected the following year.
Comments