France's far-right presidential hopeful Jordan Bardella is in a relationship with Italian socialite Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, according to celebrity magazine Paris Match.
In what has all the hallmarks of a staged scoop, this week's front page carries photographs of the couple taken recently on holiday in Corsica with the headline The idyll that no-one expected.
Rumours of a love affair have been circulating since January when the pair were seen together at an event in Paris to mark the 200th anniversary of Le Figaro newspaper.
But the 30-year-old president of the Rassemblement National (RN) party has consistently deflected interview questions, saying that his private life was his last space of liberty.
The Paris Match story suggests the decision has been taken to make the relationship official.
Bardella will run for the French presidency next year if a court rules in July that historic party leader Marine Le Pen is ineligible because of a conviction for misuse of EU parliamentary funds. Polls say either RN candidate would stand a good chance of winning.
Press commentators on Thursday said it was important for Bardella to be able to enter a presidential campaign with clarity about his personal life and who might possibly accompany him to the Elysée as first lady.
But they also suggested the RN might want to defuse early any possible resentment among poorer voters about their leader's entanglement with an ultra-rich aristocrat.
Maria Carolina – also Duchess of Calabria and Palermo – is the 22-year-old daughter of Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro, one of two contenders to leadership of the royal house of Bourbon-Two Sicilies which ruled Sicily and southern Italy in the 19th Century. The heirs lost their throne when Italy was unified.
Maria Carolina – whose title carries no legal standing in the Italian Republic - is a distant descendant of France's Sun-King Louis XIV.
According to her official website, she grew up in Rome, Monte Carlo and Paris and is now actively involved in cultural, social and humanitarian initiatives that reflect her family's heritage and values. She also participates in creative and philanthropic projects alongside her sister Princess Maria Chiara.
She speaks six languages, has more than 350,000 followers on social media, and a close interest in the fashion world.
Since her father abolished the so-called Salic law, which allows only male heirs – she can expect to be the next head of her royal house.
Next to pictures showing her and Bardella walking, holding hands, and clambering over rocks, Paris Match waxes lyrical about a couple reinventing courtly love – 21st Century-style.
A classical elegance – a couple incredibly atypical, it says. On one side, a politician from the ranks of the people. On the other, a princess from the highest reaches of the nobility.
She was brought up in the opulence of Paris, Rome and Monaco. He is heir to no name, but the pure product of social ascent. Born in a council flat in [the Paris suburb of] Saint-Denis, he belongs to that French tradition of personalities who impose themselves not by their birth – but by their will.
According to the magazine, the couple met in Monaco during the Grand Prix of May last year, to which Bardella had taken his racing fan father.
Paris Match is owned by the French billionaire Bernard Arnault, lead of the LVMH luxury goods conglomerate.
