Dream landscapes, and shorts. In the images published by Serge D.-G. on social networks, these two elements are almost always present. Normal, the 32-year-old activist is a mountain guide, especially in Corsica, a lover of the great outdoors, hiking and treks. “A great guy,” says one of his friends, who also remembers that he worked as a stonemason a long time ago. Since this Saturday, March 25, Serge D.-G. is in a coma. This Friday, March 31, his vital prognosis was still engaged. He was injured in the head on the sidelines of the anti-basins rally in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), in circumstances to be clarified. His parents filed a complaint against X for “attempted murder and willful obstruction of the arrival of help”.
The 30-year-old was in one of the three processions seeking to surround the land with the water reservoir. After setting off at 11 a.m., the first demonstrators arrived there before 12:30 p.m. The gendarmes arrived on their quads and fired tear gas canisters. Activists attempt to make their rounds of the compound. A little over an hour later, around 1:45 p.m., Serge D.-G. falls to the ground, his helmet damaged by a projectile that the demonstrators present believe to be a GM2L grenade, a type of tear gas stun grenade – the Ministry of the Interior does not confirm. He is bleeding profusely, and has been moved several times by militants who have come to help him.
Late support
“Medics” – as these demonstrators with medical skills are called – take care of him, call the Samu. But help is slow to arrive. “However, we were in a totally calm sector, we had gathered the wounded people away. The path which gave access to the emergency services had been cleared”, says Mat *, an activist from Bassines no thank you. This participant in the “pink bustard” procession – supposed to stay away from the clashes – explains that he went to the point where Serge D.-G. after the first tear gas canisters were fired at the crowd. Benoit Jaunet, co-spokesperson for the Confédération paysanne, and opponent of the basin project, is then with the injured. “He was on the phone with the authorities, and told them that there was an injured person, that the way was clear”, continues Mat.
Faced with the absence of an ambulance, Serge D.-G. is placed in a private white van. Two gendarmerie officers, including a GIGN doctor, joined them and administered first aid. “We saw the Samu arrive, but the ambulance was further away, explains Mat. I ran across the fields to join them and take them to the vital emergencies, where Serge D.-G was.” The injured was finally taken care of around 3:15 p.m., before being evacuated by helicopter to the Poitiers hospital a little over an hour later. The investigation into the circumstances of these facts was entrusted to the Rennes military prosecutor’s office.
Anti-NATO and anti-nuclear
Of course, Serge D.-G. was not there by chance. The 30-something is a regular in anti-capitalist struggles. His parents are seasoned activists themselves. His father was Daniel Cohn-Bendit’s right-hand man during May 1968, before getting involved in anarchist groups, for Basque nationalism and becoming one of the leaders of the Libertarian Communist Organization, an ultra-left movement. . Since 1982, he has run a committed publishing house. His mother, from a family invested in Corsican nationalism, also wrote several books claiming to be “libertarian communism”. She was a proofreader at the newspaper The world and was, moreover, the doctoral student of the historian Marc Fumaroli, a member of the French Academy, not particularly renowned for his adherence to the tactics of the “black bloc”.
According to our information, Serge D.-G. has been a thousand fights to the left of the left since the end of the 2000s. He had got into the habit of adopting a coded language in his militant exchanges. The police discovered his existence in April 2009: he was part of the procession of a few thousand demonstrators who denounced the holding of the NATO summit in Strasbourg. It was then Barack Obama’s first trip to France. The event was meant to be pacifist, but on April 4, 2,000 thugs – according to the police – disrupted the demonstration, some using the “black bloc” technique, then little known in France. A tourist office, bank counters or an Ibis hotel had notably been set on fire.
ZADs and squats
Serge D.-G. gravitates then in the circles of the extreme left in Poitiers, then in Rennes where he takes part in anti-nuclear actions, before settling in Toulouse. In 2011, he got into trouble with the police. On July 5, in Labège, a town bordering Toulouse, the premises of the South interregional directorate of the Judicial Protection of Youth were ransacked by a dozen hooded people. According to The Midi Dispatch, they had damaged the furniture, poured excrement into the offices and inscribed tags “Pigs” or “Fuck justice”. Serge D.-G. is then suspected, to the point of carrying out two months of pre-trial detention. However, he is not condemned.
Shortly after, the young man went to the ZAD (zone to defend) of Notre-Dame-des-Landes (Loire-Atlantique) where he took part in the protest against the airport project. Then, in 2017, he co-founded the local Camarade, a place of anti-capitalist activism in Toulouse, for “communism” and for a “revolutionary movement that abolishes classes, genders, the State, value, property “. This room hosts anarchist, autonomous, libertarian and revolutionary meetings.
“Calm” and “posed”
After a few years working in construction and a history degree, Serge D.-G. then divides his life between Toulouse, the Pyrenees and Corsica. He passes the state diploma of mountaineering first degree, which allows him to be a mountain guide, in 2019. During this internship, he meets Vincent, another guide, whom he will meet again a lot over the years. years. “He loves guiding people in the mountains, describes the latter. He regularly takes people with disabilities to the mountains, to allow them to hike.” This “friend” evokes a “calm” and “very calm” man, “committed to his humanist values”, and focused on ecology and social justice.
In 2022, Serge D.-G. also takes part in a demonstration against the construction of a prison in Muret (Haute-Garonne). His friends also know him to be involved in the world of squats. He is part of the Autonomie collective in Toulouse, which aims to “reclaim empty and unoccupied buildings by investing them to house those who need it”. The police can still see him in the lead procession of the demonstrations against the pension reform in Toulouse, on March 11 and 15. He is one of the animators of Autonomous Action, a pro-vandalism group that claims to be at the “head of the procession”, where the “black blocks” are formed.
S plug prior to 2017
At the beginning of March, Serge D.-G. and Vincent go on a hike, and get annoyed at the “mega-basin” projects, which “take water resources for the benefit of a few”. “He didn’t even tell me that he intended to go to Sainte-Soline,” says Vincent. He explains today that he only had a vague idea of Serge’s commitment. “I know that he had participated in the yellow vests, he lists. In Toulouse, he was in many associations, without my necessarily knowing which ones. I was not aware of his involvement in demonstrations, nor , as has been said, of his black bloc past,” he said.
The fact that he is on file S, that is to say particularly followed by the intelligence services because of a profile presenting risks of attack on the security of the State, leaked in the media shortly after the demonstration. Information confirmed with L’Express – his S file dating back to a date before 2017. “This element was revealed on purpose to try to tarnish his image, comments his lawyer, Chloé Chalot. We wanted to carry out a media campaign against someone who was in his hospital bed, in a coma. His parents put it in a statement worthy enough to be relieved.”
In a press release published on March 29, the parents of Serge D.-G. confirm that their son was on S, “like thousands of activists in France today”. They add that “Serge has participated in many anti-capitalist rallies – like millions of young people around the world who think that a good revolution would not be too much, and like the millions of workers currently fighting against pension reform in France. “, and did have legal problems, “like most people who fight against the established order”. Acts “in his honor”, they conclude, after announcing a complaint, not only for attempted murder, but also for “violation of professional secrecy within the framework of a police investigation, and misappropriation of information contained in a file of their purpose”.
In another press release, published on March 30, the Local Comrade denounced a “new surge of violence, this time media-driven, which aims to make Serge a man who can legitimately be killed”. “Serge, as a revolutionary militant, has participated for many years with all his will in the various class struggles that arise against our exploitation, always with a view to enlargement, strengthening and victories for the proletarians”, is it affirmed. And to conclude: “We call on all those who know him to say around them who he is. But remembering one thing: Serge, in the fight, refuses the strategy of power to designate the good and the bad.”
*Name has been changed.