France’s far right embraces the ‘Yellow Vests’

Anti-government protests — this time on a smaller scale — bubbled up again for a fifth consecutive weekend, increasing pressure on President Emmanuel Macron.

But for the far-right National Rally party — formerly known as the National Front — the grass-roots movement presents an opportunity. Its leaders — including Marine Le Pen, who lost to Mr. Macron in last year’s presidential election — have swooped in to provide demonstrators with venues and encouragement, hoping to capitalize on a huge pool of potential recruits. The party has also sent its own activists into the protests to push an anti-immigrant agenda, which was never a focus of the movement.

Go deeper: The “Yellow Vests,” who remain untethered to a political party and still have no clear leader or agreed-upon set of demands, have used Facebook to organize. But conspiracy theories threaten to undermine their only trusted form of communication.