True friends are revealed in adversity – and sometimes the most unexpected ones. On Monday, March 31, just hours after a Paris court sentenced Marine Le Pen to a five-year ban on running in elections with immediate effect, Farid Smahi waited outside the headquarters of the Rassemblement National (RN), where the far-right party leader had gone with her close associates.

Smahi is a former member of the party's top committee and part of the cohort of supporters of the Organisation de l'Armée Secrète (OAS), which carried out terrorist operations during the Algerian war, admirers of Philippe Pétain, and of anti-Semites expelled by Le Pen when she took over the party in 2011. But now, at 71, he no longer holds a grudge. He came to express his solidarity with Le Pen – although not without a slight feeling of revenge. "The 'de-demonization'... All that, for this," he sighed, referring to Le Pen's efforts to normalize her political image, before calling on the French to "take to the streets to block the country."

Is the RN witnessing the resurgence of old ghosts? Since Monday, the far-right party has reconnected with its virulently populist and anti-system rhetoric. It is even organizing a weekend of protests in the streets to put pressure on the judiciary – or as it calls it, "to save democracy." In November 2024, during the prosecution's sentencing requests, the idea of taking to the streets to oppose a court decision had drawn sarcasm from Le Pen's circle. But after the judgment, even the most reluctant got behind the idea. "The role of politics is also to provide people with an organized and democratic way to express their anger," said Jean-Philippe Tanguy, a prominent RN lawmaker.

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