It is autumn in Paris and, just as every year, the circus has come to town. Over on the vast grassy expanse that is the Pelouse de Reuilly on the eastern fringe of the capital, wranglers have just lifted the vast red-and-yellow big top for the nightly show so beloved of Parisians.

But this year, watching the lion tamers crack their whips and the clowns race round the ring in a chaos of noise hardly seems exciting – at least not when compared to the free show put on in recent weeks by France’s ruling UMP party.