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Marine Le Pen opens her presidential campaign on law and order as France braces for protests

DW News asks Sciences Po's Gilles Ivaldi who the National Rally's message reaches, then joins Tessa Walther at the one Paris square where marchers are allowed.

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DW News Story of October 25, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? One of DW News's most watched videos since yesterday, with 51,829 views.

How France's unrest could help Marine Le Pen's presidential push | DW News

Things we can learn from the video

Press to jump

0:00Melissa Chan describes Paris and other cities boarding up shops after a week of protests and rioting.
1:06Le Pen opens her campaign in Orléans by tying freedom to security and justice to authority.
2:00Gilles Ivaldi says the unrest is fueling support for the National Rally as the law-and-order party.
5:40Ivaldi says the party's message is aimed at older voters more than at young demonstrators.
8:58Tessa Walther reports from Place de la Bastille, the only authorized protest spot in Paris.
13:31Lyon footage shows tear gas as Walther explains how police disperse crowds, including with rubber bullets.

Marine Le Pen launched her presidential campaign at the National Rally's annual congress in Orléans with a line written for a country on edge: "There is no freedom without security or justice without authority."

DW News places that launch against a France bracing for another weekend of mass protests, a week after demonstrations turned into rioting and looting in several cities. Much of the coverage of France has stayed on the streets. This report, the most watched of DW News' new videos with about 52,000 views since yesterday, asks a political question: could the unrest help the far right?

Gilles Ivaldi, a researcher at Sciences Po's Center for Political Research, tells anchor Melissa Chan that the turmoil is "definitely fueling support for the RN," because it helps the party present itself as the party of law and order. He is precise about whom that message reaches. "Right now the strategy is more on the older people than the younger ones," he says, and the young people marching are not its main target.

The report shows heavy barricades and police preparations in Orléans ahead of demonstrations outside the congress. Of those protests, Ivaldi says, "Clearly, the objective is to demonize the Rassemblement National." He also describes a government held back by budget limits and a political landscape split between the far right and the far left.

From Paris, correspondent Tessa Walther stands at Place de la Bastille. "This is the only spot where the authorities actually authorized the demonstration to happen here in Paris," she says. Around her she describes bag checks, water cannons and military deployments meant to stop violence from escalating, and she notes that police have the right to fire rubber bullets to disperse crowds. Archive footage from Lyon shows tear gas spreading across a street.

"Tensions on both sides are very high," Walther says.

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