59 Arrested at Far-Right March in Paris; RN Struggles for Loan

Public order on the 9-Mai anniversary was the day's defining operation. The Paris police prefecture said 59 ultraright and ultraleft militants had been arrested across the capital, with 32 placed in garde à vue, after officers moved through République, Pyramides, Saint-Michel and Montparnasse to enforce the prefecture's ban on the Comité du 9-Mai's annual march for Sébastien Deyzieu — the ultranationalist who died in 1994 after falling from a Paris rooftop while fleeing police — and on an antifascist counter-rally organised under the slogan "Pas de Nazis dans Paris." The arrests cited "participation à un groupement en vue de commettre des violences" and "port d'armes prohibées (matraques télescopiques, couteaux…)." The figure was revised upward from an initial nine custody placements; the prefecture had cited public-order disturbances at the February 2024 march for Quentin Deranque in Lyon to justify the ban, and the juge des référés of the Paris administrative court upheld it. The same Place de la République, kept off-limits to the banned rallies, hosted the EU's Journée de l'Europe with public stands, food trucks and an evening concert.

The right's other story today was financial. Rassemblement National MEP Matthieu Valet told franceinfo that the party is still struggling to find a French bank willing to extend the €10.5 million loan it needs for the presidential campaign of Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella, despite polling around 35 percent. Valet seized on the proposal by Crédit Mutuel chairman Daniel Baal that the state guarantee or advance funds, but redirected it into a demand that Emmanuel Macron honour his decade-old "banque de la démocratie" pledge — alongside the unmet 15,000 prison places and the OQTF execution rate that he placed at "not even 10 percent." On Algeria, he attacked Macron's diplomatic reset around the ambassador's return to Algiers and the Sétif commemorations and called for revisiting the 1968 accords, the 1986 Franco-Algerian social-security agreement, the Évian accords and Algerian diplomatic passports until journalist Christophe Glaze is freed. Valet welcomed Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez's disclosure that some Algerian OQTF holders had been returned this week, contrasted it with Bruno Retailleau's tenure, and called the 21,000 Algerian OQTF orders against "100 et quelques" actual removals in 2024 derisory. He dismissed the European Public Prosecutor's investigation — opened on a complaint from AC!! Anti-Corruption that the RN used European parliamentary funds to pay for media training for Jordan Bardella during the 2022 campaign — as politically motivated "fake news," singled out journalist Tristan Berthelot, and accused Macron of locking in allies at the Conseil d'État and the Cour des comptes.

Around those two anchors, the day's residual politics were of the same colour. Florian Philippot formally announced his presidential candidacy, prompting Valet's curt brush-off: "Si Monsieur Retailleau pique nos idées, tant mieux." Jean-Luc Mélenchon used the day to push his framing of a 2027 LFI–RN face-off, locking the choice he wants. The mayor of Waziers, in the Nord, was attacked after Friday's 8-May commemoration. Météo-France placed 14 departments under yellow vigilance for the weekend.

Three days into the new EU migration regulation that enters into force this summer without national transposition, Valet credited Bardella for assembling right-wing MEPs around the text — alongside François-Xavier Bellamy — and explained the RN's vote in committee but not in plenary as a line-by-line judgment. The regulation introduces up to two years of detention for removable individuals deemed dangerous, allows execution of an OQTF in another member state, and creates third-country return hubs.