Emboldened by their success in the municipal elections, it hasn't taken long for the Front National to throw aside its caring, sharing mask crafted so carefully by Marine Le Pen.
Weeks, in fact, for the 11 mayors brought to power by France's distaste for the deeply unpopular President Francois Hollande and his socialist party.
With their feet barely under the desks, some of these throwbacks have shown exactly what they stand for and who their targets are.
Steeve Briois wasted no time in the northern French town of Henin-Beaumont in kicking out human rights activists from their council-owned offices.
His excuse was that the League of Human Rights had become "politicised" and was no longer legally entitled to public money in any form.
The fact that the members had strongly opposed his candidacy had nothing to do with it, of course.
In Beziers, Robert Mainard is bringing in a new summertime municipal decree affecting under-13s, who will be banned from being out alone at night.
This curfew targets what are known as "sensitive neighbourhoods" in France: in other words, those which would come under racial profiling if such counts were permitted.
On a roll, the same mayor also announced there would be no halal meals in municipal cafeterias. He was only following his leader Le Pen, who announced that in keeping with France's secular laws, Muslim and Jewish pupils would no longer be offered pork-free options.
Unfortunately, in his speed to carry out orders he didn't check his facts and had to back-pedal when it emerged no halal meals are actually on the menu.
Looking around for his own cause to stamp, or stamp on, the mayor of Villers-Cotterets decided there would no longer be a day of commemoration for the abolition of slavery. He said there was no need for the "continual self-inflicted guilt".
But two mayors put the boot straight in to their target. In Mantes-La-Ville, a suburb of Paris, Cyril Nauth is determined to block a new mosque previously approved by the socialists.
He's using potential parking problems and fears that the religious leaders may not be able to raise half the projected cost along with the council.
Two days after his election, a letter was posted to the prayer room rented by the Muslims, welcoming the arrival of the new mayor and wishing him good luck in "cleansing" the town "in particular, of the Muslim race".
Down on the Riviera in Frejus, David Rachline was elected on his opposition to a mosque already under construction and has called for a referendum on its continuation.
He also ordered the removal of the European flag from the front of the town hall in accordance with the FN's anti-EU stance.
One can only hope that in seeing the petty, nasty reality of any power going to the FN, the protest voters will come to their senses in time for this month's European elections.
And one can only hope that each action taken by these bigoted mayors and their councillors will be writ large in the press alongside a reminder of their stated aims.
It needs to be constantly reinforced that Le Pen's winning, winsome smile covers a xenophobic, negative manifesto: anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, anti-Europe. She wants France "safe" and protected, reduced to a country reliant on itself and its "own" people - white people.
Already she has succeeded in making it acceptable for people to state openly that they voted and would vote for her party.
She has formed a populist party out of the vile rantings of her father and if she can keep the gags on her more unreconstructed followers, she could well be a serious contender in the national election of 2017.
In part, she has succeeded because of Hollande's weakness and the increasing disarray within UMP, the main opposition party. And if either party is to neutralise her they must address the questions which, for a growing number of French, have found an answer in FN.
We all need to wake up to the slow but steady crawl of the unacceptable across Europe. It is too late to view such people as unelectable - they have been and are being elected; given the power to enforce their warped view of a country's destiny.
But back to Beziers and the young mayor Rachline, who used to head up the FN's Youth Movement. The one against the mosque and the EU flag.
Le Pen enjoys being photographed with this apparently charming face of the "new" FN.
The fact that he is half-Jewish was a feather in the cap of the woman whose father was convicted of holocaust denial, describing the gas chambers as "a mere detail in history".
There are those within the Jewish community who believe Le Pen has removed the anti-Semitic element associated with the "old" FN.
Others who warn she is playing "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" game and that nothing has changed in the grassroots.
Le Pen apparently dreams of becoming the first woman since Jeanne d'Arc to lead France to greatness.
The Royal Court gave her an army, for there was little to lose for a regime on the point of collapse.
Hollande should take heed.
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