The “Zouaves” on the carpet. Suspected of being involved in the violence committed during the meeting of Eric Zemmour, the ultra-right group “is the subject of work” by the territorial intelligence, we learned Friday from a source close to the case, confirming information from Parisian. A dissolution procedure could be considered against them at the end of this investigation.
Last Sunday, during the first campaign meeting of the far-right candidate in Villepinte, several SOS Racisme activists, who had exhibited “No to racism” t-shirts, were attacked with punches and throwing chairs by support from the polemicist. “One of the attackers is a person who is a member of the Zouaves Paris (…). He was recognized by a person from the militant sphere ”, declared the president of SOS Racisme Dominique Sopo. About fifty members were present at the meeting. Identified by the police as belonging to the Zouaves, they had posed at the exit of the meeting for a photo, chanting “we are at home”.
The leader of the Zouaves already convicted of violence
According to several media, including Mediapart, Release and Streetpress, the aggressor identified as a Zouave member would be the one presented as the leader of the group, Marc de Cacqueray-Valmeunier. The young man had already been sentenced in January 2019 to six months suspended prison sentence for violence during the demonstration of “yellow vests” on December 1 in Paris.
Les Zouaves, heirs of GUD, the former far-right student union, is a “hooligan-style” group which has been bringing together since 2018 “people who come from other more established groups, for violent and rapid actions”, according to Marion Jacquet-Vaillant doctor in political science, specialist in identities.
Perpetrators of the baseball bat attack
They have not filed statutes to form an association but may correspond to “a de facto group” liable to commit “violent acts against people or property”, according to the criteria for dissolution defined by the code. internal security.
In June 2020, “the Zouaves Paris” claimed responsibility for the attack with baseball bats and tear gas aerosols on the Saint-Sauveur bar, an emblematic place of the anti-fascist movement in the Ménilmontant district. During the trial in the Paris judicial court concerning this attack, six and ten months in prison were required in mid-November against two ultra-right activists, including Marc de Cacqueray-Valmeunier and an acquittal for three others, for lack of sufficient evidence. The judgment is due on January 21.
Since the beginning of the year, two ultra-right groups have been dissolved by the government: Génération Identitaire at the beginning of March and the Alvarium, located in Angers, at the end of October.