In Orléans, Marine Le Pen launches her campaign
Jordan Bardella re-elected with 98.98% of the vote, an anti-fascist demonstration and a rally of “renaissance”.
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Orléans, Saturday. The only candidate to succeed himself, Jordan Bardella is returned at the head of the Rassemblement National with 98.98% of the votes of 75,497 memebers, despite Mediapart’s revelations about antisemitic messages attributed to him. In town, 13,000 people according to the prefecture, 26,000 according to the organisers, march against the far right, Trappes on everyone’s mind.
A “renaissance” and a Bardella government
On Sunday, activists from the Union of Jewish Students of France briefly interrupt the party president’s speech. Then Marine Le Pen speaks of “renaissance”: “I am not offering you a return to the France of before, but to build the France of tomorrow”. She promises a “pluralist” government of national unity led by Jordan Bardella and wants to “restore” the Fifth Republic rather than replace it.
The Élysée calls for concord, Mélenchon hits out
At the Élysée, Emmanuel Macron calls for “unity and concord” after Trappes and demands “the greatest firmness” against offenders. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for his part, sees in the images of the rally “a dazed crowd, stupefied with hatred”. Next spring, who will speak to those who neither march nor vote any more?
Based on Le Monde politique and Courrier international