Thousands of people marched through Orleans on Saturday against the far right National Rally, which is holding its congress a few kilometres away in the city south of Paris. The prefecture estimated the crowd at 11,000, and the authorised march passed off peacefully, with demonstrators chanting against both Marine Le Pen and President Emmanuel Macron.
The congress matters beyond the protest. The National Rally is expected to use it to launch Le Pen’s presidential campaign for 2027 and to re-elect Jordan Bardella as party leader, making the weekend the formal start of the far right’s bid for the Elysee. National left figures joined the counter-mobilisation, including Socialist leader Olivier Faure and Saint-Denis mayor Bally Bagayoko of France Unbowed, who said the marchers had come to tell the far right face to face that they are not afraid.
Authorities had prepared for a much larger confrontation. Officials expected 20,000 to 30,000 counter-demonstrators and deployed roughly 3,000 police and gendarmes, singling out an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 self-described antifascist militants as a disruption risk. The march itself stayed peaceful, on the reporting available.
The Orleans weekend sits inside a wider French protest autumn this site has tracked through the fuel price protests. The test for the coming week is whether the National Rally congress closes with a unified Le Pen and Bardella ticket, and whether the left’s street coalition turns into an electoral one.