Barricade That Kept Out the Far Right in France Is Crumbling

Franck Leclere made his way through the timber-framed houses of Chalons-en-Champagne and joined a crowd of people in symbolic white shirts to demonstrate against the rise of the far right in France.

Standing in front of an 18th century victory arch on the edge of the old town, Leclere held hands with some 300 protesters, many daubed with slogans that accused the National Rally party, known as the RN, the rising power in French politics, of being Nazis. Their human chain, they said, was intended to represent the so-called cordon sanitaire that has, until now, largely kept the far right from power in France.