THE streets of Paris, famously constructed for armies, faced two of them on May Day. One – that of the well- disciplined troops of the far-right leader Jean-Marie le Pen – they could cope with. The other they couldn’t.
Some 800 000 people packed boulevards and squares on Wednesday for an anti-Le Pen procession and carnival that turned into one of the biggest demonstrations the capital had seen since the student revolt of May 1968.
It was the most emphatic rejection of the veteran extremist’s policies yet mounted in two weeks of daily nationwide protest, achieved neither by slogans nor by political parties but by weight of numbers. Outside Paris, more than a million took to the streets in more than 100 towns and villages across the country. Several towns said there had not been so many people on the streets since Liberation Day.
Two hours before the 3pm start of the Paris protest more than 200 000 people with banners, balloons and paper hands bearing the words ”Hands off my mate” had filled the Place de la RÃ