This hadn’t happened for twenty-eight years. Seven people, close to the ultra-left, will appear from Tuesday before the Paris criminal court, for “terrorist criminal association” and for having refused “to hand over a secret agreement for the encryption of a means of cryptology”. The last terrorist trial which concerned this movement dates back to 1995. At the time, several members of the Lyon branch of the Direct Action group had been sentenced to heavy sentences by the specially composed assize court, for having committed around thirty explosive attacks in the Paris region, between 1982 and 1986.
Since then, there has been the so-called Tarnac group affair. But the case, which had unraveled over the course of the investigations, had turned into a legal fiasco. The qualification of terrorism had ultimately was dismissed by the Court of Cassation in 2017. And all the defendants were acquitted the following year.
“Revolutionary perspective”
This time, the investigating judges of the anti-terrorism unit of the Paris judicial court seem certain that the defendants were preparing “violent actions against members of the police and soldiers in particular”, as they put it. explain in their order for reference, consulted by 20 minutes. Their goal ? “Destabilize republican institutions through intimidation or terror”, all from “a revolutionary perspective”, believe the magistrates.
The central character in the case is a certain Florian D., aged 39. Described as an anarcho-autonomous activist, he spent ten months in 2017 in Rojava – Syrian Kurdistan -, where he fought in an anarchist battalion, integrated into the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). There, he received military training, notably as a sniper. When he returned to France in July 2018, he was discreetly followed by DGSI agents. For the intelligence service, there is no doubt: Florian D. is seeking to form a group to carry out guerrilla actions on the territory.
“Anarchist punk movement”
Among its members, we find Loïc M., the president of an airsoft association; Camille B., who was for a time the companion of Florian D., and who is presented as the “ideologue” of the group; or Simon G., a pyrotechnician suspected by the courts of belonging to “the anarchist punk movement”. There is also William D., Loïc M. and Bastien A., whom Florian D. met on the ZAD of the Sivens dam, in Tarn. Some members, like Manuel H., have even already obtained weapons and are trying to obtain others.
The information is transmitted to the national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office, which opens a preliminary investigation into the charge of participation in a terrorist criminal association. The suspects’ phones are then tapped and geolocated. But the latter are very cautious and use encrypted messaging to communicate. The police go so far as to place microphones in the Renault Master which serves as Florian D.’s home.
“Tactical progression exercises”
By listening to his conversations, they discover that Florian D. and several suspects have made and tested explosives. According to an expert, it would be Anfo, a compound of ammonium nitrate and diesel, and TATP, a product often used by jihadists.
Investigators also learned that the suspects were practicing “tactical progression exercises” with replica assault rifles and practicing shooting. Finally, they are informed that Florian D. is trying to obtain other weapons to kill wild boars… or “chickens”. On December 8, 2020, the authorities decided to arrest 11 suspects and place them in police custody in the premises of the DGSI, in Levallois-Perret. Many of them then refuse to provide the unlock codes for their phones or computers.
“Big firecracker”
Seven of them were indicted on December 11. Florian D., who makes no secret of being an anarchist activist, denies to the investigating magistrates that he and the other suspects had practiced military techniques. He prefers to talk about airsoft games with friends. Explosives? They simply had fun making a “big firecracker”, just for fun purposes.
The investigators remind him that he wanted to acquire land to discreetly train to fight against “watchdogs and the army”. Florian D. assures them that he does not want an escalation of violence. He campaigns for what he calls a “democratic revolution”. He nevertheless considers it necessary for the anarchist community to have a military force to defend itself, in the event that the fascists take power by force.
“The guy is dead, he’s here, I’ll kill him”
There are these conversations between him and Simon G., in which each talks about what he would do to a police officer who fell to the ground after a charge by demonstrators. “The guy’s dead, he’s here, I’ll kill him,” says Florian D. But for him, it was just comments made by two people who had had a little too much to drink, jokes.
Contacted by 20 minutes, the defendants’ lawyers did not respond to our requests. Their trial is scheduled to run until October 27. They face ten years in prison.