What’s the truth about the Gilets jaunes?

Marine Le Pen spent last Saturday commenting on the scenes from the Champs-Elysées as the latest Gilets Jaunes demonstration turned violent. She also had the opportunity to respond to Christophe Castaner, the interior minister who, as cobbles rained down on the heads of the riot police, accused Le Pen of inciting the far-right to go on the rampage.

Le Pen rejected the allegations, saying she had done no such thing; and anyway, as far as the National Rally leader was concerned, the people running amok in the capital weren’t from the far-right. Le Pen’s view was endorsed by Marion Maréchal, who unlike her aunt, chose to witness the latest manifestation of working-class discontent not from the warmth of a television studio but from within their ranks on the Champs-Elysées.

She turned up unannounced and evidently incognito, only revealing her presence in a tweet sent on Saturday afternoon in response to Castaner’s accusation of far-right violence.