Le Pen launches presidential bid in Orléans with law-and-order pledge

Marine Le Pen formally opened her presidential campaign in Orléans on Sunday, promising a French "renaissance" before a crowd of 8,500 supporters and framing the election as a choice between decline and restored national authority.

Speaking on a stage dressed in red and blue, Le Pen told the gathering that France had lost control of public order. "We are going to re-establish the rule of law," she said, drawing sustained applause from an audience wearing campaign T-shirts and waving French flags.

The rally came against a backdrop of two consecutive weekends of nationwide protests that began with high-school students in a Paris suburb before broadening into a wider movement. On 17 October alone, more than 2,000 people were arrested as hundreds of thousands took to the streets. A second weekend of demonstrations followed on a smaller scale, and organisers have already called for further marches.

Le Pen and her National Rally party have used the unrest to press an attack on President Emmanuel Macron over public security, while also accusing far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon of encouraging the violence. Both lines of attack were woven through Sunday's speech.

Polling ahead of the launch showed Le Pen leading candidates from the right, left and centre. Her campaign is built on a promise to restore authority, reduce what she describes as institutional drift, and return France to what she called a "destiny to be fulfilled."

Among those at the venue was Manon Funeau, a 21-year-old business school student, who said the party's values "resonate" with her. An older supporter, Nadède, 56, said she had begun voting for the National Rally over concerns about public security.

The Orléans event marks the formal start of a campaign the National Rally enters as poll frontrunner.