This Thursday, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced the ban on an evening entitled “Let them return to Africa”, organized by “La Citadelle”, headquarters of the ultra-right movement in Lille. Earlier in the day, the mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, had again called for the closure of this establishment.
“I asked the prefect of the North this morning to ban this demonstration. This is what will be done during the day,” said Gérald Darmanin during a visit to the North accompanied by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne. He was reacting to a tweet from Martine Aubry calling out to him: “Once again Generation Identity and the bar ”La Citadelle” are organizing a racist evening. The next, February 24, ”Let them go back to Africa!”. I ask Minister Gérald Darmanin and the prefect of the North once again to close the bar”. “The evening of the 24th at the racist bar La Citadelle will not take place, I am committed to it”, also tweeted the LFI deputy from the North, David Guiraud.
A sentence from an RN deputy who has been sanctioned
The establishment, which presents itself as a “patriotic bar” and a “house of identity”, announced the holding of this “special” evening when publishing its February agenda on its Facebook page on Wednesday. The title “Let them go back to Africa!” », is inspired by a declaration launched at the National Assembly, on November 3, by the deputy RN Grégoire de Fournas. Declaration for which the parliamentarian had been sanctioned with an exclusion from the session for 15 days. His parliamentary allowance had also been halved for two months. This constitutes the heaviest possible disciplinary sanction.
The host of La Citadelle, Aurélien Verhassel, figure of the ultra-right movement, ex-member of the dissolved group Génération Identitaire and support of Eric Zemmour in the presidential election, informed AFP of his intention to file a summary freedom before the administrative court of Lille to maintain the evening, which, according to him “does not fall under the blow of the law”.
The Citadel made headlines in 2018, after the broadcast of an Al Jazeera report on the ultra right in Lille. Three men, filmed with a hidden camera, in particular in the premises of the Citadel, were then sentenced to three to eight month suspended prison sentences for the racist attack on a teenager designated as North African.