‘Ugly, Badly Groomed, and Bitter’: Gendered Delegitimation and Aesthetic Politics 

In this incisive analysis, Dr. Gwenaëlle Bauvois interrogates how contemporary far-right discourse mobilizes gendered and aesthetic hierarchies to structure political legitimacy. Focusing on the controversy surrounding Rassemblement National (RN) leader Jordan Bardella’s relationship with Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Dr. Bauvois demonstrates how misogynistic rhetoric operates through a dual mechanism of delegitimation and idealization. The stigmatized figure of the female sociologist—constructed as intellectually suspect and aesthetically deficient—is juxtaposed with the idealized “princess” archetype, embodying socially sanctioned femininity. This contrast reveals how populist communication instrumentalizes gendered imagery, transforming private relationships into symbolic resources that reinforce political narratives, hierarchies of visibility, and claims to cultural legitimacy.

By Gwenaëlle Bauvois

Controversy Around a Romance 

The relationship between Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally / Rassemblement National (RN), and Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies has recently attracted significant media attention in France and abroad, particularly after their romance was featured on the cover of a gossip magazine and circulated widely across both political and lifestyle media outlets. 

During a televised exchange on this subject, Sébastien Chenu, a leading figure of the Rassemblement National, stated: “I am delighted that [Bardella] is in love, I am delighted that his partner, who could possibly become First Lady, is a young lady who speaks six languages.” Interpelled by the journalist who noted that Maria Carolina is a “luxury influencer,” he responded: “Why not!” He then added: “Not everyone is destined to be a sociology lecturer,” “ugly, badly groomed, and bitter,” (Chenu, n.d.).

Chenu’s remarks triggered significant backlash across political, media, and academic circles.As a national spokesperson for the Rassemblement National, Chenu is already recognized for his provocative communication style, which was especially apparent in this instance. The French National Union of Researchers, for instance, stated that these comments reflect the Rassemblement National’s anti-feminist positioning, which regularly targets women’s rights and reproduces outdated gender stereotypes. 

The Sociologist: Failed Femininity

At the center of Chenu’s remark lies the figure of the Sociologist, a familiar symbolic target in far-right discourse. In France, sociology occupies a particularly visible position within broader “culture wars” dynamics, where academic disciplines become entangled in political and ideological conflicts over questions of identity, inequality, and gender. Within this context, sociology is often framed by some right-wing and far-right political actors as emblematic of a politicized or ideologically biased academia. 

Crucially, however, the figure used by Chenu is here implicitly gendered: it is not a neutral academic subject that is evoked, but specifically the female sociology lecturer, whose presence is central to the rhetorical effect of the statement rather than incidental to it. The emphasis on a woman in an academic position is significant because it enables the statement to operate simultaneously through professional and gendered delegitimation, thereby amplifying its symbolic effect. 

This framing reflects three intersecting discursive logics. First, populist anti-intellectualism constructs experts and academics, more often in social science, as ideologically driven rather than legitimate producers of knowledge. Second, it specifically frames female academics as socially deviant and suspect. Third, misogynistic aesthetic stereotyping delegitimizes women through appearance and affect, casting them as Chenu describes as “ugly” and “bitter.” Together, these patterns construct the figure of the female social sciences academic as a rhetorically productive figure within far-right discourse, whose authority is simultaneously undermined along epistemic, social, and gendered lines. 

Female academics and public intellectuals are disproportionately targeted through appearance-based insults and narratives of emotional instability, particularly when they are associated with feminist or progressive positions. Within this frame, the figure of the female sociology lecturer mobilized by Chenu is used as an instance of failed femininity, insofar as she is represented as failing to conform to normative expectations of feminine appearance, emotional disposition, respectability and desirability. 

The Princess: Worthy Femininity

In contrast to the representation of the female sociologist as ugly and bitter, Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies is implicitly constructed through a combination of aristocratic lineage and conventional markers of attractiveness—youth, blonde hair, and normative beauty—alongside her prestige and glamour. The opposition between these stereotypes reflects two radically different regimes of femininity within far-right populist discourse, structured around processes of delegitimation and idealization.  

Within this configuration, the figure of the Princess does not merely function as an aesthetic ideal, but also as a form of symbolic validation. It produces a culturally legible ideal of femininity in which aesthetic conformity and social status reinforce one another. It illustrates how visibility and worth are distributed unevenly, rendering certain bodies desirable and socially legitimate, while others are marked as deviant or unworthy —an opposition explicitly echoed in Chenu’s references to ugliness and bodily neglect. 

More than a static ideal, the Princess figure operates as a normative reference point for acceptable and desirable femininity, where beauty, refinement, and social legitimacy are tightly aligned. Taken together, these contrasting constructions of femininity serve a broader populist logic of image-making, in which gendered archetypes are mobilized to organize hierarchies of legitimacy, visibility, and credibility. In this sense, the Princess archetype embodies the “right” kind of femininity and womanhood within this symbolic economy—one that is aesthetically intelligible, socially valorized, and politically functional. 

The Princess figure also works particularly well in the context of Bardella’s electoral positioning ahead of the 2027 presidential race, especially given the timing and circulation of the orchestrated, paparazzi-style photographs of the couple. The Princess figure is highly media-friendly and easily integrated into simplified narrative formats, including “fairy-tale” framings that translate personal relationships into emotionally resonant political stories. In this sense, rather than functioning as a private individual, the Princess operates as a branding resource.

The Populist Leader and the Princess: Romance as Political Resource?

This romance between the young, ambitious populist leader of the French far right and the glamorous jet-setter princess can indeed be seen as part of a wider strategy of political communication and personal branding, contributing to the construction of Bardella’s profile as a prospective presidential candidate.

It also reinforces a narrative of upward social mobility, in which Bardella’s self-presentation as emerging from a modest, working-class background is juxtaposed with his growing proximity to aristocratic lineage and inherited forms of cultural and social capital. 

However, this construction is also potentially ambivalent. Bardella has long cultivated an image as a politician who speaks for ordinary people against the elites, a figure of social ascent from below. Yet his relationship with a luxury influencer, jetsetter and heir to a fortune worth several hundred million euros—risks complicating that populist narrative of proximity to these “ordinary people” he claims to represent.

References

Chenu, S. [@sebchenu]. (n.d.). “Je suis ravi de voir @J_Bardella amoureux et que tous les deux soient épanouis ! N’en déplaise à certains, tout le monde n’a pas vocation à finir comme une prof de sociologie à Nanterre, moche, mal coiffée et aigrie ! @franceinfo” [Post]. X. https://x.com/sebchenu/status/2045028471185821837

La Provence. (2026, April 17). “Une prof à Nanterre, moche et aigrie” : Chenu défend la vie amoureuse de Bardella et s’attire les foudres de la gauche. https://www.laprovence.com/article/politique/1346683888928215/une-prof-a-nanterre-moche-et-aigrie-chenu-defend-la-vie-amoureuse-de-bardella-et-sattire-les-foudres-de-la-gauche

Caulcutt, Clea. (2026, April 9). “Jordan Bardella: France romance with Italian royal heiress goes public.” Politico. https://www.politico.eu/article/jordan-bardella-france-romance-italian-royal-heiress-goes-public/

SNCS-FSU. (2026, April 20). “Le SNCS-FSU dénonce les propos diffamatoires et misogynes de Sébastien Chenu.”https://sncs.fr/2026/04/21/le-sncs-fsu-denonce-les-propos-diffamatoires-et-misogynes-de-sebastien-chenu/