Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced on Monday August 7 that he had asked his services to “instruct the dissolution” of the traditionalist Catholic organization Civitas.
Pierre Hillard, an essayist close to fundamentalist Catholics, recently made more than controversial remarks during the summer universities of the Civitas movement. He had notably declared that “the naturalization of the Jews in September 1791 had opened the door to immigration”. Before adding that “if we remake traditional Catholicism the state religion, perhaps we should add the situation before 1789”, arousing the applause of the room. Thus proposing, without ambiguity, the forfeiture of nationality for the Jews.
“Anti-Semitism has no place in our country. I strongly condemn these ignominious remarks and seize the Public Prosecutor”, wrote on X (ex-Twitter), the Minister of the Interior.
A fundamentalist movement
This is not Civitas’ first controversy. The far-right, fundamentalist Catholic movement was created in 1999. It had notably made itself known to the general public during the demonstrations against Marriage for All with already very controversial remarks. “Same-sex marriage is Pandora’s box that will allow others to claim polygamous marriage or incestuous marriage”, declared in 2012 Alain Escada, president of the movement. Already at the time, several deputies of the Socialist Party had called for its dissolution. But the movement persisted, even becoming a political party in 2016. It fielded 14 candidates in the legislative elections in 2017, garnering 2,143 votes.
The main feats of arms of the fundamentalist movement in recent years have consisted of mobilizations against cultural events “not to their liking” and denouncing the “offensives against Christianity”. Last May in Carnac, the concert of an American organist, Kali Malone, was canceled under pressure from several Civitas activists.
Civitas was also very active in the mobilization in Saint-Brévin against the opening of a reception center for migrants, which had led to the fire of the mayor of the Breton commune, Yannick Morez.