The United States Marine Corps, the country's main foreign expedition force, has been deployed to Los Angeles – this on top of the US president enrolling the National Guard in a show of force against pockets of violent protest against the arrest of undocumented immigrants at their place of work.

It's a fight that Donald Trump wanted to pick for a long time, going over the head of the Democratic governor of California just days before another first: a US president staging a military parade in Washington on his birthday. In his first term, Trump's Republican Party was the party of states' rights, regularly accusing the federal government of overreach. How did it all change so fast?

A nation with a determined far right that's up against a splintered mainstream sounds a lot like the situation in France, where the next presidential election is in two years' time. As Marine Le Pen's party harks back to its trademark anti-immigrant rhetoric – a topic where a majority of US citizens back Trump – what lessons can be drawn from the seemingly fast-changing form of democracy in America?

Produced by François Picard, Maya Yataghene, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Alessandro Xenos.