During a Generation Identity event (illustration) – Remon Haazen / Shutterstock
The Council of State estimated, this Monday, that the dissolution of the extreme right group Generation Identity (GI) was “proportionate to the seriousness of the risks to public order” of the association which had contested via a summary-suspension its dissolution decreed in March. “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, ”said the Council of State.
The spokesperson for GI Thaïs Descufon, for her part, denounced a “political decision”: “It is not a surprise, we had little chance that our request would be heard but it remains nonetheless scandalous. “
The maintenance of an “amalgam” which put “oil on the fire”
Friday, the association had contested before the summary judge its dissolution, decreed on March 3 and justified according to the government by “incitement to discrimination, hatred and violence” and the “will to act as than private militia ”. During the hearing, the defense considered that the association was only participating in the public debate on “the link between immigration and terrorism, and more generally insecurity”, by adopting “a firm and hard position”, according to Me Pierre Robillot.
The representative of the Ministry of the Interior Pascale Léglise, on the other hand, defended that GI by maintaining an “amalgamation between immigrants, foreigners, Muslims and Islamists” put “fuel on the fire”. In its ordinance, the Council of State agreed with this. “The association also organizes events known or fostering xenophobic or racist feelings”, underlines the court.
The Council of State confirms the dissolution of the Génération identitaire association.
His observation is clear: Génération Identitaire promotes an ideology that incites hatred and violence. pic.twitter.com/loJ8RIAHnM– Gerald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) May 3, 2021
The Council of State also considered that the association used “warlike imagery and rhetoric” and refused to transmit to the Constitutional Council the priority question of constitutionality (QPC) of the association.
Created in 2012, the association law 1901, whose number of activists and sympathizers was estimated before the dissolution at most at 800 by specialists, became known by occupying the site of a mosque under construction in Poitiers. An anti-migrant operation, carried out in the Pyrenees at the end of January, had “scandalized” the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin who had initiated the dissolution procedure. He greeted Monday evening in a tweet of a “clear statement” from the Council of State.