It began as little more than a gossip item, when French magazine L’Express reported an intriguing tidbit about a meeting between President Emmanuel Macron and La Republique’s queen of pop, Aya Nakamura, at the Élysée Palace.
Nakamura, born Aya Daniolo, immigrated to France as a child and spent her teenage years in foster homes. Through her unique patois of French, English, Arabic and Bambara, she speaks to young, multi-ethnic France in a way that has made her the most streamed French language artist in the world and the face of Lancôme, a leading brand within the L’Oreal empire.
Le Pen, due to her family ties to the far-right movement and her previous failed tilts at two presidential election campaigns, is better known than Bardella, a political protege groomed, in part, to help separate her party’s public image from the overt racism of her father.