For the first time outside the founding family, the French far-right party elects a new president to replace Marine Le Pen

France's far-right National Rally party elected Jordan Bardela as its new leader on Saturday, with an overwhelming majority supporting a European Parliament member to succeed Marine Le Pen.

Bardella, 27, who has already led the party temporarily for a year, won about 85 percent of the votes of the party's members, compared to 15 percent for his rival Louie Aliu, Le Pen's former life partner.

This is the first time that the party has been led by someone outside the Le Pen family.

The far-right leader, Le Pen, resigned from the leadership of the National Rally party in 2021 before her failed bid to win the country's presidency in this year's elections, which incumbent President Emmanuel Macron won.

"I am not leaving the National Rally for a holiday, I will be wherever the country needs me," Le Pen said at the party conference on Saturday.

Le Pen is widely expected to run for another presidential bid in 2027.

Bardella, the rising star of the French far-right, is scheduled to speak at the end of Saturday, and has made clear on several occasions that he intends to support Marine Le Pen's candidacy again in the 2027 presidential election.

Bardella, who hails from a working-class area, said he would continue Le Pen's efforts to attract voters outside the far-right axis of the party.

Bardella had said, in a statement to Reuters last week, that the possibility that someone outside the Le Pen family would lead the National Rally represented a "small cultural revolution".

This caliphate comes at a time when racist incidents are increasing, including a statement by a deputy from the National Rally party, in front of a plenary session of Parliament, in which he said, "Let him go back to Africa!", after a black deputy from the left questioned the fate of a migrant boat facing difficulties in the Mediterranean.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine's father, founded the party initially as the National Front in 1972, then became the National Rally, led by his daughter Marine Le Pen.

Bardella became one of Le Pen's most famous aides in the French media, and his quick wit and ferocity made him a bitter opponent of Macron's ministers and deputies on television programs, while Marine Le Pen - who received 41.5% of the vote in the second round against Emmanuel Macron in April - withdrew from the party leadership after 11 years on the head.