According to the gendarmerie, the man in his seventies was queuing in the municipality of Moyssac last weekend for the signing of Bardella’s latest book and jumped the politician to hit him on the head with an egg. Security intervened and the RN chairman was able to continue the signing session. The suspect, a farmer by profession, was immediately taken into custody.
French far-right party chairman Bardella is hit in the head during a signing session
During his detention, which was extended for 24 hours on Sunday, the man said that he had read Bardella’s book the day before the signing session, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro. On the day of the incident itself, he went to the signing session armed with an egg, but also with confetti in his pockets. In his own words, he did not yet know “what he was going to do during the signing session”. He has since expressed regret and says he did not want to cause harm to the RN chairman.
No link was established between the suspect and the anti-RN protests during the signing session, the prosecutor said. However, the man is known to the court for similar facts against Éric Zemmour. Zemmour founded the far-right Reconquête party in 2021 and ran for president in 2022. In 2022, the suspect smashed an egg on Zemmour’s head. In the same year, he also threw eggs at a campaign bus of Marine Le Pen, Bardella’s predecessor. According to the prosecutor, he acts “against the extreme right”.