A crowd marched in western Paris on Saturday evening as the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI approached. Several hundred people were present and the crowd chanted slogans in favor of the reestablishment of royalty in France.
A nighttime procession, with torches, to the sound of slogans like “Long live the king!” or even “Down with the Republic”. Several hundred people marched in western Paris on Saturday January 18, in tribute to King Louis XVI. The crowd gathered in the early evening on the square in front of the Saint-Augustin Church, in the 8th arrondissement of the capital, before starting a march.
Carrying a painting representing the former monarch and waving numerous flags marked with the fleur-de-lys, emblem of French royalty, the participants notably converged on the Chapelle Expiatoire, dedicated to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.
“A real political project”
Royalism “is a real political project, very important for us” and the Fifth Republic “is no longer relevant”, explained a participant to a far-right media present on the scene.
This is the last edition of a demonstration which has taken place for several years in Paris around the anniversary of the death of the sovereign, who died guillotined on January 21, 1793.
-The gathering was notably organized by the Souvenir de Louis XVI association, created at the end of December 2019, an offshoot of L'Action française, a century-old far-right movement which remains the main royalist force in France today.
Outrage of LFI deputies
MPs from La France insoumise expressed on the X network their indignation at this gathering and the slogans chanted, in particular “Everyone hates the Republic”.
“Hundreds of ext-right activists, linked to the anti-Semites of Action Française, marched this evening in KuKluxKlan mode in the streets of Paris in homage to Louis XVI,” lamented the LFI deputy for Vaucluse Raphaël Arnault.
The LFI deputy for Essonne Antoine Léaument, for his part, published a portrait of the revolutionary Robespierre and the French flag “to share to respond to them (they hate both)”.
