Silent, tense and barricaded, Orléans reveals a deeply divided France

For 366 years, the George V Bridge has connected the historic city of Orléans to its south bank across the Loire. This weekend, it became a symbol of France’s deep political divisions.

The crossing was sealed off by police barricades to keep left-wing protesters separate from the party conference of the far-right National Rally and the launch of Marine Le Pen’s presidential campaign.

The barriers were reinforced with metal buttresses attached to a special police vehicle, as though they expected to be rammed. No vehicle traffic was allowed to pass; pedestrians had to account for themselves to be allowed through.

Orléans, normally vibrant on Saturday nights, was damp and silent. Car traffic had been banned from the city centre and tram services suspended. Police officers patrolled trains to the city and screened incoming passengers.

Members of the National Rally were instructed that, if travelling by train, they should disembark a stop early, where they would be bussed to the conference venue, avoiding the centre.

Shops were boarded over in case of unrest; almost all bars and restaurants were shut.

I stayed in a hotel emptied out by cancellations; just two other guests remained. It was almost invisible to the street behind the metal security doors, which the owner had drawn shut. “It’s a bit sad tonight,” she welcomed me apologetically. “Normally Orléans is much more lively.”

Polls show that the scenes of arson, looting and unrest that accompanied last week’s protests have further polarised a deeply divided electorate.

The hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who marches with protesters and accuses the police of provoking the violence, is polling at his highest level yet with 17 per cent support, according to the latest Ipsos poll.

He is the closest runner-up to Marine Le Pen, who is on 33.5 per cent, and appears more likely than ever to be elected French president next spring.

Right-wing voters overwhelmingly see Mélenchon’s France Unbowed as responsible for the violence, while his supporters reject that.

The Ipsos polling found that the scenes of October 17th evoke a feeling of hope for about a third of Mélenchon’s supporters; and for a 10th, satisfaction. For Le Pen’s supporters, their feelings are overwhelmingly anger and shame.

There are violent extremists on both sides. French media documented the appearance of groups of extreme-right militants who attacked protesters in several cities.

A man went on a shooting spree apparently targeting Muslims and black people in an outer Paris suburb on Friday, killing one man and seriously wounding a 12-year-old girl.

On Saturday, a crowd of at least 110,000, according to the Government – organisers estimated many times more than that – filled Paris’s interior ring road, a sea of humanity representing the left of every stripe. They were overwhelmingly peaceful, but disinclined to disown last week’s riots, saying it was understandable in the circumstances.

Some placards targeted President Emmanuel Macron: “Here’s your ‘republic on the march’, as**hole,” read one, a pun on the name of the political movement Macron founded a decade ago with the aim of superseding France’s political divisions.

Others targeted the National Rally, or the “fascists”, to use the term they favour. “Acab, Acab,” they chanted, an English acronym that stands for “all cops are bastards”.

In Orléans, National Rally members applauded and thanked passing police officers walking by on patrol. From a passing car, people screamed something inaudible. Police stopped an approaching young man with dark skin, putting his hands against a metal fence to pat him down.

Jean Francois Niel, a resident of the greater Paris region, said he had joined the party last year in response to what he saw as “despicable” attempts by the left-wing to prevent Le Pen from running through the courts. (She has been convicted of the misuse of public funds; an appeal is ongoing).

“This party has no racism, no anti-Semitism whatsoever; those are shameless lies,” he said. “The evil is on the left and the far-left.”

Inside the venue, unmarked security officers moved with tense urgency through the crowds, their faces partly covered by black masks.

“In our country, thousands of police officers and gendarmes must be deployed to allow a political party to meet,” the party’s proposed prime minister Jordan Bardella began his speech.

Minutes later, a disturbance broke out in the crowd to his right. Bardella urged supporters to remain calm. “Don’t give any publicity to this far-left that hates democracy,” he said. He led the crowd in a fierce rendition of La Marseillaise as security officers hustled the interlopers out.