They “shocked” the Prime Minister. Ultra-right groups demonstrated in Paris on Saturday, often hooded or with their faces concealed and wearing Celtic crosses. Faced with the images of this gathering of some 1,500 people, the government wants to ban these demonstrations. The Minister of the Interior issued a circular, consulted by AFP, entitled “prohibition of demonstrations and gatherings of the ultra-right”. First application this weekend. The Secretary of State for Citizenship, Sonia Backès, announced Wednesday in the Senate that a demonstration in homage to Joan of Arc organized Sunday in Paris by the French Action would be prohibited.
Overview of the main groups that make up the ultra-right landscape and which, despite the dissolutions, are rapidly rising from their ashes, in a fragmented way, throughout the country.
The Union Defense Group (GUD)
“Europe, youth, revolution”: at the end of the rally on Saturday, behind their black flags marked with the Celtic cross, the activists chanted the GUD slogan. A proof of the influence of this student union, a historic “brand” of the French far right born in 1968 at the Parisian University of Assas.
Never dissolved but dormant since 2017, the GUD had announced its return in November 2022. Very active since then, it has been the link between ultra-right movements, like this “sports weekend” organized in early April at the park of Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de-Seine) which brought together dozens of activists. Known for its violent actions, the GUD regularly returns to the spotlight. Loïk Le Priol, former “gudard”, is the main suspect in the murder in March 2021 of the former Argentinian rugby international Federico Martin Aramburu.
Small groups since dissolved, such as the Social Bastion (2017-2019) or the Zouaves Paris (2018-2022), were created by GUD activists. Among them Marc de Caqueray-Valmenier, presumed leader of the Zouaves, convicted and imprisoned in recent years.
Martel Division
These identity movements are regularly present in Parisian gatherings. On the Telegram “Ouest Casual” loop, popular with the movement, a photo showed about twenty people, dressed in black and blurred faces, claiming to have “raked” during a torchlight march in early January in tribute to Sainte-Geneviève, patroness of the capital.
Over the messages, these groups shell out photos of their marauding, videos to prepare themselves in case of police custody or show their support for the ultra-right activists arrested in Paris on the evening of the France-Morocco match in December. The Martel Division was for example present at the end of April in Saint-Brévin (Loire-Atlantique), where a demonstration against a reception center for asylum seekers provoked clashes with anti-fascist activists.
Argos, heir to Identity Generation
Another case of rebirth, under a new name: Argos. She wants to be the heiress of Génération identitaire, with the same agit-prop methods (agitation and propaganda) as the organization dissolved in March 2021. On her Instagram page (5,000 subscribers) the first video of the organization dated last October advocates a radical change to defend “European civilization”.
“There is something quite new: their first action in December was to block a shooting room in Paris, it’s a new way of redirecting the debate,” said researcher Marion Jacquet-Vailland.
In Lyon, the Remparts
The capital of Gaul is one of the strongholds of the ultra-right in France: between 300 and 400 people are members of the movement, according to local authorities. Their bridgehead is called the Remparts, a small group also built on the ashes of Generation Identity.
At the end of October, the prosecution opened an investigation for “incitement to hatred” after a demonstration by the ultra-right in tribute to the young Lola, killed in Paris, “marked by xenophobic slogans. “According to the mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet, this rally had been claimed by an activist identifying himself on social networks as part of “Remparts Lyon. “Videos, on the Twitter account of the “Remparts”, showed hooded people shouting “immigrant murderers”, with a banner “Justice for Lola, immigration kills”. The mayor had written to Emmanuel Macron to ask for their “immediate dissolution. »
Elsewhere, fragmented small groups
According to researcher Jean-Yves Camus, the dissolution of ultra-right groups has led to their fragmentation. “The Social Bastion was dissolved in 2019 and with it the 18 local associations which served as its relay in the main cities of France. Despite this, we see that today, we have a flowering of groups in many large and medium-sized cities, ”he underlines.
There is thus the identity organization Auctorum in Versailles, the Angevine Youth in Angers and other groups established in Rennes, Nantes, Brest or Tours, which can meet for a targeted action, as in Saint-Brévin or Saturday in Paris. In Nice, the “Zulu” group was implicated in attacks in 2020 and 2021, reports Conspiracy Watch.