When the Rassemblement National gathers in Orléans this weekend of 24–25 October for its party congress, the streets outside will tell a story Marine Le Pen would rather not hear. Between 20,000 and 30,000 opponents of the far-right party are expected to march on Saturday, with leaders from left-wing parties and trade unions — including Olivier Faure and Sophie Binet — among them. Fears that “ultra-left” elements could turn violent have prompted a heavy security deployment.
Le Pen says the authorities have given her assurances on security. But she is indignant that “left-wing organizations” are, in her words, seeking to “hinder” her party’s congress.
A Legal Congress — and a Legal Protest
The RN is a lawful party holding a fully authorized event. That does not prevent political opponents from marching peacefully to express their hostility to the ideas of a far-right party. It has happened before — and it is precisely the resurgence of that past that irritates Le Pen.
In spring 1997, the Front National’s congress in Strasbourg was overshadowed by an enormous demonstration. At the front of the march stood the city’s mayor, Catherine Trautmann, and Socialist Party leader Lionel Jospin, who would become prime minister a few weeks later. The whole left was there; more than 50,000 people turned out; the atmosphere was joyful, festive and peaceful. The mobilization infuriated FN officials, holed up inside a building ringed by police.
The Stigma of the 1990s Returns
Since succeeding her father, Le Pen has celebrated the disappearance of the protests that accompanied the FN for 30 years. They were proof, in her telling, that her normalization strategy had worked. This weekend’s march in Orléans feels like a step backward.
The balance of power has of course changed. The party dominates the political scene, and Le Pen is the favorite in the presidential race — though that argument cuts both ways, and in the eyes of her opponents it is all the more reason to mobilize. A demonstration will not by itself lower the candidate’s standing at the polls; she could even profit from any violence.
What truly exasperates her is that the mobilization illustrates the resurgence of a stigma: the idea that this party may not be quite as respectable as the others. Several RN leaders have confirmed as much in recent days with their old reflexes, warning that once in power they would cut subsidies to associations that called for marches against them.
Given the hostility the streets have shown the party in recent years, one is left to wonder: had Emmanuel Macron acted the same way, little would remain of France’s associative fabric.
