Their method: publish hundreds of virulent messages, in a few hours, in order to carry out a psychological war against those they consider to be their adversaries. Six women and two men were arrested on Tuesday January 18 in Moselle, Seine-et-Marne as well as in the Rhône, Finistère and Hauts-de-Seine. They will appear at a later date in Paris for online moral harassment, following concerted and targeted actions on a doctor and two parliamentarians last year. These eight people are members of the anti-vaccine group “V_V” – or “Vivi” which means “alive” in Italian. This organization also flourished first in Italy, before a French branch emerged.
The group, quite marginal in France, was banned from Facebook in December. Its members remain recognizable on social networks by their profile photos representing two letters circled in red. They continue to coordinate on other platforms, such as encrypted messaging Telegram. Each time, the imagery is similar. From its icon to its banners often sporting an ultra-recognizable white mask, the movement has chosen its symbol: that of the comic strip V for Vendetta, adapted to the cinema. Already taken over by hackers from Anonymous in the second half of the 2000s or, more recently, by certain yellow vests, the figure of the masked anarchist crosses protest movements around the world, and has settled permanently in France.
A symbol that escapes its creators
Adapted from the eponymous comic created by Alan Moore and David Lloyd between 1982 and 1990 for DC Comics, the film V for Vendetta, released in 2006, narrates the adventures of V, an anarchist terrorist evolving in a post-apocalyptic United Kingdom ruled by a fascist party. The main character, complex, notably motivated by personal revenge, is inspired by Guy Fawkes. The latter tried – and failed -, through the gunpowder conspiracy, to destroy the House of Lords in London in 1605 in order to place a Catholic monarch on the throne. “The conspiratorial imagination is already activated through this character of … conspirator, notes Rudy Reichstadt, director of the Conspiracy Watch site. The character, and beyond the comic strip, refers to all the imagination of the unveiling, of a democratic advent”. In the comic strip, then the film, the character of V thus wears a stylized mask of the face of the English conspirator: high cheekbones, squinted eyes, trimmed mustache and enigmatic smile. Everything to become a symbol that would escape the hands of its creators.
In an interview at World carried out in 2016, David Lloyd, designer of the comics, thus confided that he had not planned such a recovery. “It all started with the film and the merchandising that accompanied it (when it was released): a mask was put up for sale for the occasion and people began to appropriate it in order to be able to protest anonymously”, he related. Deeply rooted in Internet culture, the diversion of the Guy Fawkes mask has its roots in the anonymous forum 4Chan, the site of origin of the Anonymous movement. In 2008, during a march organized against the Church of Scientology, members of the movement chose to change the mask in real life. The stylized face then allows them to scroll while preserving their anonymity.
Banned in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain
For the first time, the mask becomes the symbol of a protest against a large organization – in all discretion. Subsequently, it became a sign of recognition of the movement, before being taken up in 2011 by Occupy Wall Street, attracted by its anti-establishment message. Its use is encouraged by protesters in New York. “If you want to show that you support us but that you are afraid of losing your job, wear a mask – any mask”, advised one of the members of Occupy Wall Street at the time. New York Times. As demonstrations multiply across the world – in London and Hong Kong, but also in Paris – the mask is increasingly associated with them. It is also used during the Arab Spring, and its import will be banned two years later by Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The kingdom then considered that the mask “disseminates a culture of violence”, encouraging “young people to disrespect the security forces and to spread chaos in society”.
The same year, a visibly stunned Alan Moore confided to the Guardian his astonishment at the success of V’s mask. “I guess when I was writing V for Vendetta I had a thought, in the secret of my heart: wouldn’t it be great if these ideas really had an impact? So when you start seeing this futile fantasy creeping into the real world… It’s weird. It feels like a character I created 30 years ago somehow escaped fiction.”
Popular culture
In the following years, the mask continued to inspire protests against the “system” or the elites. He landed in particular in the demonstrations of yellow vests in 2018, alongside, as in other movements around the world, participants with the face of Joker or wearing the mask of the Money Heist. With a few variations, these characters all have in common to be in revolt against the system and social injustices. “It is the sign of an adolescent culture, fictional, in which each of us has been immersed in recent years, points out Julien Cueille, associate professor of philosophy and doctor of psychoanalytic studies. It is so anchored in our existence that it irrigates each of our actions”.
Having become a symbol of the fight against injustice, the mask of V represents above all, at its source, the rejection of an Orwellian society. Of a State where political and media powers try to control the life of each individual. Therefore, its adoption not only by an anti-vaccine movement like that of the V_V is not very surprising. With them, the Guy Fawkes mask is used less than the main character’s sword-drawn symbol: a V in a red circle. “The question is not so much whether the character resembles the antivax as the way they see themselves”, confirms Thomas Huchon, journalist specializing in conspiracy. On their channels, the movement takes up, for example, Nazi imagery by associating it with the measures taken by the governments, in particular French and Italian, to stem the epidemic. Living like warriors, its members intend to fight “the Nazi health dictatorship” and do not hesitate, as an article by Releaseto treat caregivers as “collaborators” who “bite people with poison”.
“They think that power is fascist and live as resistance fighters, exactly like the character of V for Vendetta”, explains Complotist Deleter, creator of the program of the same name against cyberbullying and observer of the V_V movement. A fiction that has so far pushed them to carry out several waves of cyberbullying, and to carry out some actions in real life by placing tags or stickers outside… If they are openly inspired by the character of the film , the members of the group are fortunately not in carrying out the violent actions orchestrated by V. “But we must be careful of possible excesses, worries Thomas Huchon. These people are convinced against something dreadful. From that moment, all means are good to resist…”