Far-right leader Le Pen says visible policing keeps protests smooth

FMM - F24 Video Clips
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Oct 25, 2026
For more on what's been happening there,
we can cross now to our reporter, Antonia Kerrigan.
So, Antonia, we've been reporting Marine Le Pen expecting
to launch her presidential campaign today.
Is it fair to say that she has a lot of reason to be confident?
Well, let me just bring you up to date with where I am,
because here I am just inside the entrance of the party conference.
They're yet to begin letting in the public en masse.
But if you look behind me, it's full up for certainly
the first 200 meters down that stretch coming up to the entrance gates.
I can also tell you that what they've been chanting is,
come on, Marine Le Pen, we feel we're going to win.
In French, it, of course, rhymes.
They've also been singing the Marseillaise.
We also, you know, we know we heard from party leadership yesterday
that they have had a 3% bump in membership since just last Saturday,
since the 17th of October protests
degenerated in certain cases,
into looting and vandalism.
They received a boost also in the polls.
That's verifiably true.
We spoke to supporters of Marine Le Pen yesterday.
Let's have a listen to what they said.
It's fair to say their message is one of confidence.
Who's bringing up civil war?
Who's bringing up violence?
It's them.
We want, we believe in a patriotic Republican France.
The only France that exists is ours.
We're in a time that is deeply corrupted by the far-left
and left-wing groups that seek
to corrupt our youth and are now trying to gain
the upper hand over our ideas, and ultimately
over our love for France.
No, there isn't two.
There is only one France.
We want to bring that France together.
The anti-fascist France is a minority,
a France that makes demands and stirs up unrest.
And it has nothing to do with us.
Well, Marine Le Pen attributes this recent boost in popularity
and this recent boost in membership numbers to some kind of awakening.
She suggests that French people
who previously hadn't been affected by issues
such as crime and insecurity have had some kind
of realisation since last week's events
and on which clearly her numbers have benefited.
From which her numbers have benefited.
This afternoon, launching the campaign,
we'll first hear from Éric Ciotti,
who's an ally of the party, a dissident Republican.
Then we'll hear from Jordan Bardella,
who is, of course, their candidate for the premiership,
the man who we have, of course, talked about a lot in recent weeks
because he was outed by an investigative media
as having shared extremely anti-Semitic messages,
sharing specifically Jewish conspiracy theories
by message in his younger years.
And then, of course, we'll hear from Marine Le Pen,
who will be giving her opening speech,
her kick-off speech for the campaign,
the theme of which we're told we hear will be something
to do with an idea of renaissance or rebirth.
Antonia, thank you so much for that.
We'll be keeping an eye on what comes out of that party congress.
