Well over a hundred thousand people took to the streets of France today as opposition to the presidential candidacy of far-right leader Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen gathered momentum.
In the biggest single protest since the National Front (FN) leader's stunning first round success on April 21st, 45,000 demonstrators responded to a call from left wing groups and trade unions for a march through the capital, police said. Organisers put the figure at 100,000.
The march left the Place de la Republique -- Paris's traditional rallying point - mid-afternoon, and two hours later crowds were still waiting to join the procession.
Big demonstrations took place in other cities, notably in the east and south of the country, where Le Pen made his biggest scores.
Some 20,000 people marched in Nancy and Marseille, and a similar number in Grenoble where the demonstration was the city's largest in 40 years. There were 15,000 in Rennes, 13,000 in Bordeaux and smaller protests in Brest, Le Havre, Strasbourg and Tours, among others.
Passing beneath a banner slung between trees reading "No Pasaran" -- "They shall not pass," the anti-fascist slogan from the Spanish civil war -- demonstrators in Paris carried placards branding Le Pen a Nazi and urging a massive vote against him. "Let's block the road to fascism," read one.
Youth groups in uniform white T-shirts chanted, "First, second, third generation -- we are all the children of immigrants," a reminder of the foreign roots of many present-day French people.
The march was a varied, multi-coloured display of the diversity of the French left, including black and north African groups shouting anti-racist slogans, solemn but serried ranks of determined trade-unionists and women's groups, who were particularly angered by Le Pen's opposition to abortion.
"We don't want to be forced to stay at home," said a spokeswoman for a group called "500 mothers against Le Pen."
Police, who kept a strong but discreet presence, saw today's protests as a dry run for even bigger protests -- both for and against the National Front leader -- planned for the May 1st holiday on Wednesday, and which many fear could degenerate into violence.
Protesters handed out leaflets urging the left to rally behind President Mr Jacques Chirac in next Sunday's second round in order to deal a smashing defeat to Le Pen, and expunge the memory of his first round triumph.
"It is not going to be easy voting for Chirac. But we have got to do it. And if enough people vote for Chirac and he wins by a huge majority, then he will know that he is only president thanks to us -- the left," said student Mr Laurent Paulista.
Many leaflets suggested ways of voting for Mr Chirac, but at the same time registering opposition to the conservative incumbent.
Voters who dislike Mr Chirac should wear a white armband when going to the polls on May 5, said one. "It is the only way to show that our institutions do not work, and that they must be changed."
Another urged voters to place the voting slip bearing Mr Chirac's name in the ballot box, but to send the other -- with Le Pen's name -- to the president's official residence at the Elysee palace.
"So that he does not forget. So that he appreciates that we will never forget how he got there," the leaflet said.
Meanwhile the ranks of the Troskyist Workers' Struggle group, whose candidate Mr Arlette Laguiller won 5.79 per cent of votes cast in the first round of the election, was booed by many bystanders over its refusal to call for a vote for Chirac. "Neither Le Pen nor Chirac," its activists chanted.
Many businesses along the route of the march pulled down their shutters for fear of trouble that erupted after a demonstration earlier in the week.
Shopkeepers who stayed open said they were becoming exasperated by the succession of protests there during the past week.
AFP