The announcement had been expected for more than two months. The Minister of the Interior announced that he would present Wednesday, June 21, in the Council of Ministers, the decree of dissolution of the environmental movement The Uprisings of the Earth (SLT). The procedure was initiated on March 28, three days after a demonstration banned by the prefecture against a giant reservoir of water for agriculture in Sainte-Soline, in Deux-Sèvres. Frozen since, the procedure was finally released last week, following, in particular, the degradation of a vegetable farm in Loire-Atlantique, in Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu. Intervened during a traveling rally against the exploitation of sand for industrial use in Saint-Colomban, it had been organized at the call, among others, of the Uprisings of the Earth. If the dissolution of the collective is completed – provided that no one files an appeal, or, if not, if the administrative justice ends up validating it – the SLTs will be part of some 150 associations dissolved since the law of 10 January 1936 on combat groups and private militias.
Adopted in the context of the rise of far-right leagues, the text provides for the dissolution of all factual groups and associations which “would provoke armed demonstrations in the street”. Since then, the number of criteria for dissolutions has expanded, matching the political context of each period. For example, just after the adoption of the law of 36, five of the dissolved associations were far-right leagues. After the war, 24 of the 40 organizations forced to disappear are affiliated with anti-colonialist movements. Since 2017, the dissolution of 33 associations has been announced, the majority of them targeting far-right groups, such as Alvarium, Generation Identity or the Lorraine Bloc. This multiplication of dissolutions does not, however, mask a problem: faced with small groups or movements with members that are difficult to identify, the procedure seems to struggle to have lasting effects.
Material consequences
Since its creation in 1936, the legislation has however evolved. Repealed since, the original text was included in the internal security code, before being amended by law of August 24, 2021 confirming respect for the principles of the Republic – nicknamed “separatist law”. According to the latter, “are dissolved, by decree in the Council of Ministers, all associations or de facto groups which provoke armed demonstrations or violent acts against persons or property”.
The immediate consequences for the structure are particularly pecuniary. “We can compare the dissolution of an association to the end of a company: once the decision has been taken, we have to do the accounts”, illustrates Maryvonne Chamboduc de Saint-Pulgent, former president of the report and studies section of the Board of state. In the case of BarakaCity, dissolved in October 2020 and accused by the government of “relations within the radical Islamist movement”, its lawyers Mes William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth had thus specified that the decision of the Council of Ministers led the organization ” which theoretically no longer exists, to organize itself to urgently transfer its assets and the employment contracts of its 47 employees”. The liquidators of the organization are then responsible for recovering the sums due to the association, terminating the contracts, laying off the employees, or even paying its debts. As explained by French administration websitethe remaining assets can be transmitted either in accordance with the statutes of the association, or to legal persons: a public establishment, a foundation, several other associations.
Less than ten cancellations since 1936
However, these steps do not concern all the dissolved associations, which are not all declared in the prefecture. “This only works for those recognized as legal persons, which correspond to the classic definition of associations of the law of 1901, but many organizations are what are called groups of facts”, points out Me Colas Amblard, doctor in law and associate lawyer at NPS Consulting. There is then no collective good to manage. In both cases, however, the dissolution of the organization is not automatic. Its members can lodge an appeal to challenge it before an administrative tribunal, then the administrative court of appeal, and finally the Council of State. The approach rarely succeeds in favor of the organizations: since 1936, around fifty associations have attempted an appeal. The Council of State has canceled the decree only seven times.
After its dissolution, former members seeking to reconstitute it risk criminal prosecution and can be punished by three years’ imprisonment and 45,000 euros in fines. In the case of a group identified as a “combat group”, the penalty is five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000. In July 2018, Yvan Benedetti and Alexandre Gabriac, two figures of the ultra-right, were condemned for having reconstituted L’oeuvre française (OF) and the Nationalist Youth (JN), two organizations dissolved in 2013, after the death of Clément Méric: 80 days of fines of 50 euros for the first, 30 days of fines of 50 euros for the second. Dissolution also has a purely “moral” application, linked to public opinion. “It is not a neutral decision, which casts opprobrium on the members of the association concerned, and can discourage them from gathering afterwards, in addition to the criminal risk”, notes Me Louis Boré, lawyer at the Council of State and the Court of Cassation.
Change of names and countries
For his part, Yvan Benedetti is in any case still active in the sphere of far-right organizations, being now responsible for the small group the Nationalists. “Nothing prevents people whose association has been dissolved from forming a new one afterwards, points out Hélène Durand, lecturer in private law at the University of Perpignan, author of a thesis on “The governance of associations” “It’s freedom of association, a right guaranteed in France. But if it is proven that the same people reform a similar structure with similar goals to those of the disappeared, they can be condemned”.
To circumvent the law, dissolved associations have several methods. Some may pretend to change countries: created at the end of 2020 in Belgium the Collective against Islamophobia in Europe (CCIE) explains on his website that the “intellectual production” of the CCIF – dissolved that year in France – as well as “its reports since 2003” or even “its means of communication” have been bequeathed to it. Other small groups simply change their name. Some time after its dissolution in 2018, the ultra-right group Bastion social was reborn, for example, from its ashes under the name “Vent d’Est”, going so far as to reactivate his old Twitter and Instagram accounts – by renaming them.
In April 2023, SOS Racisme reported in a letter addressed to Gérald Darmanin that the GUD Paris, reactivated after several years of dormancy, constituted “a threat to a large part of the population and to our democracy”. According to the anti-racist association, the GUD Paris would be a new name for the Zouaves Paris, dissolved in January 2022. “It is clear that this administrative sanction does not prevent the members of this small group from continuing their activities”, pointed out Dominique Sopo, president of SOS Racisme. Difficult to dissolve groups that have no existence in the eyes of the law, whose identity of members is unknown, and which meet on an ad hoc basis, often organizing themselves via encrypted messaging. “To punish people, you still have to be able to identify them,” remarks Hélène Durand.