Is France on the verge of class war between Yellow Vests and Red Scarves?

The first thing that struck me when I emerged from the metro station onto the Place de la Nation was the amount of corduroy. It was without doubt the trouser material of choice for the middle-aged men participating in Sunday’s inaugural Red Scarf (Foulard Rouge) rally in support of the Republic and its institutions.

As I meandered through the crowd, which numbered only half of the 20,000 hoped for by the organisers, I was also surprised by the number of blue and gold flags. Some demonstrators were waving the EU banner and others were wrapped in it, like football fans on their way to a World Cup match.

I spied a woman sheltering from the driving rain under an EU umbrella and thought she would be a good person to start talking to. She and her husband were erudite young professionals who were braving the weather to show their support for the Republic.