Manifestation pour Marine Le Pen le 6 avril à Paris
France’s right-wing Rassemblement National (RN) has called for a demonstration in Paris on Sunday, April 6th, in support of Marine Le Pen. The planned protest—which follows Le Pen’s conviction, prison sentence, and disqualification from running in the 2027 presidential election—has provoked the anger of the Left, which called it a “fascist” threat. Despite this, the RN, supported by a public statement from Donald Trump, claims that its membership has exploded in the space of a few days.
Mobilisation was swift. In the hours following the verdict in the trial of the RN’s European parliamentary assistants, sentencing Marine Le Pen to prison and ineligibility from office, the party announced that a demonstration would be held on Sunday, April 6th, in the centre of Paris. But, since this announcement, tension has been mounting to the point that, according to a poll conducted for the LCI news channel, a majority of French people fear that trouble may break out on the sidelines of the demonstration.
The president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, reassured the public in a televised address. This event will be held “in a totally peaceful spirit,” he said. “It is a mobilisation for democracy and to ensure that our rights are respected.”
The Left decided to raise the spectre of an apparent “fascist” threat, claiming there was a high risk of breach of the peace. One of the main people making these claims was far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon—even though he was one of the first to deplore the ban imposed on Marine Le Pen from standing in the 2027 presidential election. Mélenchon claimed there was a high “seditious risk” associated with Sunday’s rally, which he described as a “fascist gathering” (rassemblement de fachos.)
Eugénie Bastié, columnist for Le Figaro, denounced the far-left leader’s hypocrisy, recalling that Mélenchon himself called for his supporters to “march on Matignon” and demand a left-wing prime minister in the wake of the legislative elections of summer 2024. “The obsession with the fascism of the 1930s blinds some observers to an undeniable reality: in recent years, it is in far-left demonstrations that police officers are being beaten, burned and injured, and hateful, violent or seditious slogans are being shouted,” the journalist wrote. RN president Jordan Bardella also pointed out that all the violence recorded at demonstrations in France in recent months has been perpetrated by violent ultra-leftist groups.
Meanwhile, centrist former minister Xavier Bertrand, a long-time opponent of Marine Le Pen at the local level in the Hauts-de-France region, claimed the protest could turn into “a bad remake of the Capitol,” a reference to the unrest that accompanied Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in 2021.
The public support that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have given to Marine Le Pen is also fuelling the fantasy machine of the Left and the centrists. On the night of Thursday 3th to Friday 4th, the American president called for the liberation of Marine Le Pen (“Free Marine Le Pen”) in a post on his Truth Social network, judging that her sentence of ineligibility was a “witch hunt” to prevent her from winning the 2027 French presidential election. Shortly before, his vice-president, J. D. Vance, had also criticised the court decision, saying that “this is not what democracy is about.”
Le Pen’s entourage sought to play down the support of the American president to emphasise that the RN is independent despite the multiple international statements in support of her cause. “Many foreign leaders have spoken out in recent days, expressing concern over what is seen as the use of the justice system as a tool against political opponents. Some did so in good faith, others to throw our own lessons in democratic morality back at us,” explained RN MP Philippe Lottiaux.
Although it is difficult to predict the turnout for Sunday’s demonstration, the RN is pleased with the huge increase in membership since the announcement of the verdict: 20,000 in three days, according to Marine le Pen and Jordan Bardella, for a party that had passed the 100,000-member mark in September 2024.
A petition in support of Le Pen, launched on Monday, March 31st, the day of the verdict, has already gathered more than 500,000 signatures.
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/le-pen-backers-to-protest-in-paris-on-sunday/