Thais Descufon, former spokesperson for the ultra-right group Generation Identity, now dissolved by the government. – Olivier Coret / SIPA
The former spokesperson for the ultra-right Generation Identity movement will have to answer for his actions in court. Thaïs Descufon will be tried this Wednesday with another activist by the Saint-Gaudens Criminal Court (Haute-Garonne) after an anti-migrant operation in mid-January in the Pyrenees, said Saint-Gaudens prosecutor Christophe Amunzateguy. The 21-year-old Toulouse student is being prosecuted for public provocation to racial hatred and public insults.
Videos had been broadcast, in particular on the YouTube site, with people who participated in this demonstration. In mid-January, around thirty activists from the far-right group had deployed between Luchon (Haute-Garonne) and the Spanish border. With cars screened “Defend Europe”, the militants had settled at the Col du Portillon, some had gone on hikes using a drone to monitor the border. These activists thus claimed to want to fight against the “terrorist and migratory risk in the Pyrenees”.
Thaïs Descufon denounces a “political decision”
Generation Identity was dissolved in early March. The Council of State confirmed this decision because “proportionate to the seriousness of the risks to public order” linked to the association which had contested its dissolution via a summary suspension.
“This association, under the guise of contributing, according to its statements, to the public debate on immigration and the fight against Islamist terrorism, has been propagating, for several years, ideas (…) tending to justify or encourage discrimination, hatred or violence against foreigners and the Muslim religion ”, estimated the Council of State. Thaïs Descufon, for his part, denounced a “political decision”.