foiled attacks, social networks and political links – L’Express

He scans the place for a few seconds and is pleased with the number of participants. It was not won. Since the death of Thomas and the organization of an ultra-right punitive expedition in the Monnaie district of Romans-sur-Isère on November 25 (where some of the presumed suspects are said to have come from), the gathering initiatives have taken place. are multiplied. Organized the previous weekend in Nice, Valence and Bordeaux, they were banned by the prefectures (in Paris, the administrative court finally suspended the ban). Converging from all over France, these white-hot activists intended to “attack residents with immigrant backgrounds” whom they designated “as those responsible for insecurity”, according to a territorial intelligence note. Two days later, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced “proposing the end of various small ultra-right groups”.

According to a recent parliamentary report, the movement is made up of around 3,300 people, including 1,300 on S files. It is distributed in small groups across France which can range from a few people to several dozen activists. “We have noticed a significant increase in the number of small groups in regional metropolises, or in medium-sized towns the size of Bourges or Albi,” points out Jean-Yves Camus, political scientist, specialist in the extreme right.

If the extremist movement does not currently have the means to destabilize institutions, the renewed activity of these small groups is closely scrutinized by general intelligence. According to information from L’Express, two planned attacks instigated by small far-right groups have been prevented since June. “There have been 12 planned attacks that have been foiled by the ultra-right since 2017, so six since 2020, the Interior Ministry says. This is not nothing. two per year on average: violent action projects against, for example, Muslim community sites or others. This is very worrying, we must take this seriously.”

The activists of these structures, sometimes seduced for a time by a traditional candidacy, have often turned their backs on the polls. Their loss of confidence in institutions is accompanied by a desire to take power through indirect means. “Demonstrations do not change the face of the earth, but they are more useful than votes, maintains an activist. What is happening today must awaken in us a feeling of revolt and push us to action, and when legitimate state violence is not exercised, we have the right to defend ourselves.”

With the Internet, there is no longer any need to meet other activists at university or in the rest of the public space to be recruited. The ultra-right now appeals via social networks and encrypted messaging loops like Telegram – which makes its supporters all the more difficult to count. “Unlike the usual ultra-right, with paramilitary preparation, activists from Romans-sur-Isère have a self-radicalized profile, and arrived on the ground with little training – which explains that the altercation with the forces of order will ultimately have been relatively reduced”, points out a prefect.

This environment as big as a pinhead is agitated by a new trend: accelerationism. If the number of its activists is “relatively limited” according to Beauvau, their violence is worrying. Their goal: to stage and accelerate the occurrence of a civilizational war that they consider inevitable. In France, activists generally consider that the racial war began in 2015, with the attacks of Charlie Hebdo and the Bataclan. According to a senior official from the Ministry of the Interior, the increase in the number of sympathizers with this thesis is also mirrored by the radicalization linked to jihadism. “There has been a significant increase in the number of young people interested in ultra-right theses, which is part of a dynamic parallel to that linked to radical Islam,” he explains. These two movements in tension are possible because these young people only educate themselves through the web.” The phenomenon increased during the health crisis, when Internet users were seduced through the complosphere. “The conspiracy theories that we saw emerging at that time, such as Qanon, served as a gateway for these young activists,” continues the senior official. Following the example of the accelerationist thesis, the American imagination has infused this environment.

Certain small groups, popular yesterday, find themselves almost obsolete today. “Activists left Action Française – established in the French landscape since the Dreyfus affair – because they did not find the group virulent enough,” explains Emmanuel Casajus, sociologist and author of Style and violence in the radical far right (Editions du Cerf, 2023). When Action Française uses violence to intimidate or defend itself, the groups belonging to the nationalist-revolutionary current advocate attack.” For this “movement within the movement”, whose objective is to precipitate civil war, every opportunity is good to take. “The success of this thesis materialized in particular with the affair of Saint-Brevin-les-Pins”, continues Emmanuel Casajus. Yannick Morel, mayor of the commune of Loire-Atlantique, had received threats after the officialization, at the end of 2021, of the installation of a reception center for refugees in the commune. His house had been set on fire, forcing him to resign. In September, 60 far-right activists went to the city “for action against the holding of a conference on the reception of exiles”, indicated a source close to the matter at Parisian. Six activists arrested on site will be tried in March 2024.

Very often, this breeding ground of radicalized young people forms a militant breeding ground for far-right parties. During the presidential campaign, several former Génération Identitaire executives (some of whom passed through the ranks of the National Rally) joined Eric Zemmour’s campaign. Members of the small Parisian identity group the Zouaves were present during its meeting in Villepinte, on December 5, 2021, and were at the origin of violent outbursts. If, today, the National Rally officially condemns all the actions of these small groups, it regularly happens that in its ranks, young activists or collaborators of elected officials are singled out for maintaining links with these movements. Because, young people especially, share common references and an ecosystem among themselves.

In Paris, they live in a small environment where everyone knows each other and goes to the same places. From training places to bars in the 6th arrondissement, such as Cave Saint-Germain or Chai Antoine, where it is not uncommon to come across a radical activist leaning at the counter with a young RN or Reconquête. Place du Panthéon, this Friday, two demonstrators are discussing, one gaze focused on the red smoke bomb waved by the organizer. “I voted for Zemmour and Le Pen in 2022. We will eventually get there, it’s only a matter of time, and the day things change, it will be good for us.”