With only six days remaining before the first round of voting in the French presidential elections, what at first seemed a staid and unpromising campaign season has once again veered into the rocambolesque.

Agence France Presse reports:

According to the UDF candidate's campaign team, Fran?§ois Bayrou's headquarters, located in Paris' VIIth arrondissement, was occupied by illegal aliens [sans-papiers] late Friday afternoon.

Around 4:30 P.M., "around a hundred" illegal aliens, among them mothers and small children, entered the headquarters according to our source. They left shortly before 7 P.M.

In the aftermath of the much publicized Gare du Nord riot, today's raid on the centrist candidate's headquarters [for Bayrou's relatively wimpy stance on immigration, see here] only serves to confirm the central place accorded immigration and national identity in a campaign that has, so far, been largely defined around these issues.

Sarkozy and Le Pen, one must suppose, are rubbing their hands in glee.