A spotlight on an empty chair. Even as Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen cursed the "embittered ingrates and loonies" of the breakaway National Front (FN), mocking Mr Bruno Megret's "pitiful apotheosis" and his "impotence by nature", the delegates at Marignane remained obsessed with their absent, 70-year-old father figure.
On the stage in the gymnasium where the extreme right-wing movement yesterday consummated its split, Mr Franck Timmermans, a Paris regional councillor and one of Mr Megret's top lieutenants, addressed himself theatrically to the empty chair.
For the first time, he dared to call Mr Le Pen by the informal "tu", and by his first name. "You turned your back on the workers and brains of the party," Mr Timmermans said. "You listened to parasites and profiteers . . . Jean-Marie, tu deconnes (You're off your rocker)." In a two-day, public confessional, Mr Le Pen's former followers reiterated charges of cronyism and nepotism. They were "cutting the umbilical cord" with the "historical branch" of the FN, Mr Timmermans said. They had respected the FN's statutes in calling an extraordinary congress and electing a new president. Theirs was the legitimate, democratic National Front, in revolt against an ageing despot. The congress's first act was to restore the membership of all those expelled by Mr Le Pen in his "purge".
A "political code of good conduct" and a "motion on financial transparency" were among the reforms voted.
By outrageous public statements casting doubt on the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews and denigrating blacks and Arabs, Mr Le Pen has marginalised the FN, the Megretistes argued. He was content to lead a party of protest, with just 15 per cent of the French vote. He envisaged coming to power only in catastrophic circumstances such as the arrival en masse of North African boat people or nationwide riots in immigrant suburbs. The Megretistes want to win, want to govern.
Their "National Front - National Movement" (FNMN) believes it can gain the loyalty of the 30 per cent of French people who have at some time voted for the FN.
Traditionalist Catholics are one constituency targeted by Mr Megret, so a Mexican priest said a Gregorian Mass in Latin for 400 delegates, including Mr and Mrs Megret, before yesterday's session.
As Mr Megret read off the names of those elected to his central committee, the extent of the blow to Mr Le Pen became evident. Ms Marie-Caroline Le Pen, his eldest daughter, came high on the list and her name prompted loud cheers. Ms Le Pen is seven months pregnant by Mr Philippe Olivier, another of the "mutineers" close to Mr Megret. Her doctor advised her against attending the congress. Mr Bernard Courcelle, the former head of Mr Le Pen's private militia, the DPS, also defected to Marignane. So did Mr Bruno Racouchot, his former cabinet director.
Hatred and hurt, anger and nostalgia for Mr Le Pen dominated the meeting. "Le Pen pisses on the tricolour flame (the FN's symbol)," was scrawled on a bathroom wall. Yet an attractive blonde in a white suit was applauded when she read a motion regretting the absence of Mr Le Pen. Was she deliberately twisting the knife when she praised his historic role and announced that the congress was conferring the title of "honorary president of the National Front" on him?
Mr Jean-Yves Le Gallou, a member of the European parliament and Mr Megret's deputy, described the June 1999 European election as "a struggle against the grey Europe of the grey men of Brussels, Strasbourg, Maastricht or Amsterdam . . . the Europe of anonymous bankers and cold financiers". When the FNMN comes to power, he threatened, it will renounce the treaties and restore French sovereignty.
The "immigration invasion" will be at the heart of its European campaign. "Must Germany become a western Turkey?" Mr Le Gallou asked. "The British Isles a new West Indies? France the Maghreb of the north and Scandinavia a new land of Islam?"
"I will not practise a personality cult and I will keep the courtesans at bay," Mr Megret told the cheering crowd. But under the tent outside, it was his face that smiled up from every book and magazine cover. "Megret L'Avenir (Megret, the future)," egret, the future) said all the banners. The leader is paramount in extreme right-wing movements and old habits, like old leaders, die hard.