Ratonnade, attempted ratonade, or “peaceful assembly”…. After the death of Thomas in Crépol, social networks and politicians echoed the tensions with the far right this weekend, whether in Romans-sur-Isère or in Rennes. What constitutes a rant? And what are the racist dynamics at work? We take stock with historian Sylvie Thénault, CNRS research director, specialist in colonization in Algeria and the Algerian war of independence.
The term is built on the racist word “racoon”, which originally referred to a small rat, then became a slang term used in the 19th century to describe a child trained to fly. “From the interwar period, we encounter the term as designating what were called North Africans at the time,” underlines the historian. After 1945, it was particularly used during the Algerian war of independence. Ratonnade refers to “violent acts against Muslims or people from the Maghreb and targeting their property or these people with a racist dimension”. The term is used in a historical context and has no legal value.
Activists “ready to fight”
Let’s return to the events in Romans-sur-Isère. Saturday evening, around 80 far-right activists, armed with sticks, marched hooded through the streets of the Drôme town with the aim of “fighting” with the young people of La Monnaie, according to a police source cited by AFP . The activists who came from different cities across the country were pushed back by the police. Seventeen people were taken into police custody, said the Drôme prefecture. An activist was molested and stripped naked by strangers during the parade organized near the Monnaie district, from which some of the suspects in Thomas’ murder allegedly came.
On social networks, videos from far-right accounts show images of this parade towards the Monnaie district, and indicate that they are “ready to do battle with the riffraff” or are coming “to avenge Thomas”. Street Presswhich carries out in-depth work to investigate small far-right groups in France, draws the portrait on by Léo R., neo-Nazi from the Martel division, fan of Hitler and the 3rd Reich, who would be “Big Bacon”. He would be “the leader of this violent racist expedition”, where other profiles of neo-Nazis were spotted by the media.
Six convictions handed down
After a new rally on Sunday, three other far-right activists were taken into custody, as well as four young Romanians from the Monnaie district. These 7 individuals were “all carrying weapons or weapons by destination,” the Drôme prefecture said on Sunday. on. This Monday, November 27, six people were sentenced to six to ten months in prison for “participation in a group formed with a view to preparing violence” or “degradation”, due to Saturday’s events. Five were also convicted of “violence” against a police officer.
On a Telegram channel, a small far-right group from Lyon claims to have gone to the Monnaie district to “make people hear [leur] anger and demonstrate peacefully”, believing that French law did not apply in these areas, while calling on the French to join them in the future “to organize themselves against the rabble and against the State” and to “recover the country city by city”.
Racist violence
The rhetoric of revenge and denunciation of the ineffectiveness of institutions is characteristic of the ratonnades. “The ratonnades during the war of independence in Algeria had precisely this subversive dimension,” underlines Sylvie Thénault, author of Ratonnades of Algiers, 1956 A history of colonial racism (ed. du Seuil). The term ratonnade is generally used to designate racist violence, such as that of October 17, 1961. Algerians then demonstrated to boycott the curfew imposed by the prefect of police Maurice Papon, a “discriminatory” measure which only concerned the Algerians. This demonstration was “violently repressed by the police, with a racist dimension, reported by testimonies”, adds the historian. The repression left several dozen dead.
But this is not the only episode concerned. In 1956, says Sylvie Thénault, a leader of the cause of French Algeria was killed in an attack by Algerian nationalists. During his funeral, thousands of people followed the funeral van. “Along this procession, French people from Algeria participating in the funeral spread into the surrounding streets and carry out what we call ratonnades,” she explains. Concretely, they ransacked stores belonging to Algerians, they overturned kiosks. And then, there is physical violence, people are taken out of public transport or cars to be hit. Others are killed, including with firearms. »
“A way to replace the police”
“Ratonnades,” she continues, “is also a way of showing a form of discontent towards the authorities and of replacing the forces of law and order by wanting to exercise a sort of private justice or revenge, by claiming that the State does not do its repressive work with sufficient efficiency. In the case of 1956, there was the same type of slogan of calls for revenge. » “It is a logic of self-defense which is very dangerous in terms of democratic life,” she recalls.
It also highlights the collective and indiscriminate nature of this violence. “We are making a community taken blindly responsible for the acts committed. This is where there is the racist dimension, with this collectivization of the presumption of guilt which is serious,” she notes. “The Romans-sur-Isère event is part of this long-term history of mass shootings,” she believes. Historically, the term resurfaces at times when we see violence with a racist dimension. »
In Rennes, a parade without arrest
The anti-colonialist and denunciatory dimension in the use of the term explains that “the extreme right today does not want it because it knows very well that if we use it, it is because we denounce the racist dimension violence,” underlines Sylvie Thénault.
In Rennes, far-right activists also marched on Sunday evening, the term ratonnade was used by several accounts on X to describe this gathering. But it is not suitable in this case, due to the absence of violence: according to videos broadcast on social networks, far-right activists chant “Blue white red, France for the French”, “We are at home” or “Justice for Thomas”. Contacted, the Rennes police confirmed that an “unauthorized wandering of around forty minutes took place” on Sunday evening. It was followed by the police, but did not give rise to any arrests, as no damage was noted.