Academia Christiana, a “peaceful association of Catholics”? This is in essence the message repeated on social networks by his far-right supporters. Gérald Darmanin paints a completely different portrait, appearing to confuse certain facts. The association would provide “very great support for the collaboration of Marshal Pétain”, declared the Minister of the Interior on CNewsews this December 11.
And would have “advocated anti-Semitism with people who considered that Jews were not men like the others” during his summer school. Except that, if the event organized by Academia Christiana had been talked about because of activists with S files, there were no articles concerning anti-Semitic remarks. This is the summer university of Civitas (association dissolved in October), where anti-Semitic remarks were made, reported France Blue Mayenne.
“Traditionalist Catholicism and ideas of identity”
On December 10, the Minister of the Interior announced Raw that “the elements” supporting the dissolution of the movement would be presented to the Council of Ministers soon. The group “recurrently legitimizes physical violence and the use of weapons,” a source close to the matter told AFP. In reaction to the announcement of the dissolution, Academia Christiana accused the executive of seeking to “prohibit any thought or reflection outside of secularist and materialist ideology” in a press release and rejected the minister’s accusations, described as ” imaginary facts.
Founded in 2013 by young people close to the identity movement, Academia Christiana presents itself as an “integral” training institute, both “spiritual, moral, intellectual and sporting”. She claims to “defend the True, the Beautiful and the Good”. The association is “at the confluence of traditionalist Catholicism and identity ideas,” indicates Jean-Yves Camus, researcher attached to the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Iris) and co-director of the Observatory of Political Radicalities of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation. Since 2013 and the end of the Manif pour tous, a sort of junction has taken place between part of the identity movement and young people who are mainly driven by traditional Catholicism as a faith. That’s a relative novelty. »
A supervised summer school
The organization is chaired by Victor Aubert, professor of French and philosophy at the Institut Croix des Vents in Sées (Orne), a private educational establishment outside of a contract run by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint-Pierre, a traditionalist institute recognized by Rome. Among its members, we find Julien Langella, who is the vice-president, and had co-founded Génération Identitaire, a small far-right group dissolved in 2021. As noted Releasethe association recommends in its bibliography anti-Semitic works, such as those of the anti-Masonic Jacques Ploncard d’Assac or Monseigneur Delassus.
This is not the first time that the association, monitored by the intelligence services, is in the news. In August, its summer school was held near Angers in the presence of several S-listed activists known for violence, as reported France 3. These meetings, which brought together around 400 people, have become a “crossroads”, where speakers from almost all the chapels of the radical right come to the podium, “which is quite rare”, notes Jean-Yves Camus .
“The best regime was Vichy”
A hidden camera investigation broadcast in the news of “20 Heures” on France 2 in February 2022 also recalls that several members of Academia Christiana are listed as S because of their radicalism. During a meeting in a bar, the journalist met a participant who told her that “the best political regime we had in France in the 20th century was Vichy, notwithstanding the anti-Jewish laws and collaboration” . He then acknowledges that some people are anti-Semitic at Academia Christiana, “but not the majority”. In response, Victor Auber, president of the association, indicates that Academia Christiana is “a training institute which does not call for any armed struggle and is foreign to any obsession with Jews”.
Her Political program of a generation in the storm, published in 2022, is “a fairly classic Catholic and identity program,” explains Jean-Yves Camus. It presents proposals on culture, memory, localism, identity with the question of remigration, social policy, security, institutions, the family (the association defends anti-abortion positions and participated in “walks for life”), etc. “Nothing distinguishes this program in the virulence of the remarks from the rest of the production and the radical right movement,” believes the researcher, who points out that this is rather logical for a book intended to be sold. The traditionalist priests, with whom they work, “remain in obedience to Rome and the Vatican,” he continues.
A legal battle in perspective
Regarding the use of the term “crusade” during closed events, the researcher remains cautious. “The crusade is obviously, when we look at history, an expedition with a spiritual objective, but which uses violence directed against Muslims quite extensively. Does the use of this term cover a reality which endangers institutions or which sees a certain number of activists from the association developing violent projects? I am unable to tell you. »
Is this enough for a dissolution? The association rejects it outright and repeats the weakness of the minister’s case. She indicates that she will go “to court” to challenge this “absurd” dissolution.