Long tables covered with emerald-green paper tablecloths were laid out in rows in the village hall of Mainvilliers, a small town located a stone's throw from the historic town of Chartres in the central French Eure-et-Loir department. On Friday, March 14, independent local MP Harold Huwart warmly welcomed elected representatives from the surrounding area. Nearly 250 people – political allies, activists and sympathizers from the center, as well as the moderate left and right – had accepted his invitation to the 117^th edition of the "Marceau banquet," which is held annually in tribute to both a revolutionary-era general and to the feasts French republicans had once held by as a front for their political meetings.

Huwart had reasoned: What better way to rally the region's small political scene together, amid a time of national upheaval, than the banquet, a historic symbol of republican unity? A few days earlier, President Emmanuel Macron had sent shivers of fear coursing throughout France by mentioning an imminent outbreak of war. "Peace can no longer be guaranteed on our continent," he had warned, in a solemn address delivered on March 5. "The Russian threat is here. It has reached the countries of Europe. Reached us," he said. Just over two hours away by car, the Caesar cannon manufacturing plant in the city of Bourges has already stepped up its production, in order to rearm the country and support Ukraine, which is still under fire from Russian attacks.

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