After Generation Identity, a few months ago, the group “Les Zouaves Paris” could join the long list of extreme right groups administratively dissolved by the State. The Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanina indicated to launch the procedure, this Sunday. “Les Zouaves Paris” notably made itself known during the meeting of Eric Zemmour, on December 5, in Villepinte: its members were at the origin of the beating of the militants of SOS Racisme came to protest peacefully in the room of the meeting. Who are the “Zouaves” and why dissolve this group? 20 minutes make the point.
Who are the “Zouaves of Paris”?
The group has existed for almost five years. Its nucleus is only made up of about fifteen people, estimates the media StreetPress : “It is above all an affinity band”, he indicates. Former members of the far-right student organization Groupe union Defense (GUD), in particular. According to Jean-Yves Camus, a specialist on the far right interviewed by 20 minutes, “The Zouaves Paris” look “very much like an armed group, but not terrorist, which uses violence on a regular basis to achieve its ends”. Still according to Jean-Yves Camus, the “Zouaves” are close to politicized hooligan circles. There are neo-Nazis and neofascists. Ideologically, the group has nevertheless “not much interest, judges our expert. Its production is zero. Barely the front of a leaflet during a demonstration of “yellow vests”, no newspaper, not even the embryo of a fanzine “.
Their enemies and enemies are nevertheless fairly well defined. There are of course the “antifa” on the far left. AFP recalls that in June 2020 the “Zouaves” were at the origin of the violent attack on one of their bars, in the district of Ménilmontant, in Paris. More generally, the “Zouaves” seek “the confrontation with everything they consider as” leftist “: feminists, LGBT people and other usual opponents of this fringe”, details Jean-Yves Camus.
Who is at their head?
Even if there is “no real organization chart”, as Jean-Yves Camus says, their leader is nevertheless known: it is Marc de Cacqueray-Valménier, 23 years old. “He is a boy from a ” good family ” from the west of France,” describes the specialist on the far right. StreetPress notes that this “good family” has already given several executives to the French far right: Marc de Cacqueray-Valménier’s uncle was notably chaplain of Civitas and one of his cousins was a candidate for the RN at Le Mans. Marc de Cacqueray-Valménier is himself passionate about MMA and a multi-recidivist of violent actions. “He looks more like a kop leader than a political leader,” says Jean-Yves Camus.
The young man is nonetheless a “fascist” as he described himself in 2019 in the columns Release. It is in this same newspaper that we learn that he left at the end of 2020 to engage at the front during the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, won by the latter. For the “Zouaves”, this war was nothing more than a battle in their fight against the Muslims and “the Islamization of Europe”: “The future of our continent and of our civilization is at stake in the Nagorno-Karabakh ”, they explained at the time. Small subtlety in the landscape of the extreme right: where one is more often fascinated by Vladimir Poutine and the Russian nationalists, Marc de Cacqueray-Valménier is, him, closer to the Ukrainian nationalists, notes Jean-Yves Camus.
Why does the state want to dissolve the “Zouaves”?
You should know that it is not because “Les Zouaves Paris” is not a formally constituted association that it is not possible to dissolve them. “It is a de facto group that acts under a specific name to carry out acts”, explains Jean-Yves Camus. The justification for the dissolution seems fairly obvious, given the group’s liabilities and “the repeated use of violence which causes disturbance to public order” mentions a specialist on the far right.
But, to find out more, we will obviously have to wait for the formal motivation of the Minister of the Interior. According to our expert, the latter must normally go through the Department of Civil Liberties of the Ministry so that the dissolution “can pass the ramp judicially in the event of an appeal”. “We have initiated this procedure, there will be an adversarial one, as every time I have done this, I have done it for Generation Identity,” Gerald Darmanin recalled on Sunday.