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Just before half past four, Marine Le Pen took to the stage under the stadium strobe lights at the Zénith Arena in Orléans. The radical-right leader, whom analysts say is on the doorstep of the presidency, is polarising, yet deeply and increasingly popular with her base, and has topped the popularity polls for months in France. This came 24 hours after the latest protests across the country, which included over ten thousand anti-Le Pen demonstrators outside the venue yesterday.
The lead-up had seen some problems play out with the press: four journalists from the investigative team Mediapart were ejected. There is ongoing animosity between the party and the online site, which had published private Facebook messages allegedly written by Jordan Bardella as a teenager, containing highly antisemitic language. He has sued for defamation and described it as a political attack designed to damage the credibility of the National Rally.
The journalists were allowed back later. We'll get to that in a moment. The stage was set for Marine Le Pen, with the event sandwiched between Swan Lake and Vanessa Paradis in the Aréna's schedule.
The theme was Renaissance, and notably not nostalgia or a turning back of the clock to the past, she said. Amid months of convulsions across the country, student protests and accusations of poisoning politics from the radical right and left, she spoke of her platform for law and order, which she claimed was absent under Macron, and her vision of what she called a National Community. Alexandre Sabatou, is the National Rally MP for Oise, which covers Chantilly, Beauvais and Compiegne in the north of France.
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