On the letter, the handwriting is neat and meticulous. “Sir, I am sending you a bomb document”. On April 27, 2002, Pierre Hillard, a young doctoral student in political science, seems convinced of having discovered the equivalent of the atom. “The map of ethnic Europe designed with the backing of the European Parliament, all accompanied by a commentary, he continues. Do not hesitate to disseminate this map as much as possible, which shows that the expression ‘federation of nations’ is a lie”. The document in question, effectively emblazoned with the flag of the European Union, actually lists the list of European regionalist parties. It contains the number and address of the Scottish national party, but also of the Occitan party, or even of the Breton Democratic Union.
For Hillard, this directory is a real scandal of State. “These German-European documents prepare the Europe of the tribes, he worries in an appended note. […] The map of Europe presented opposite is a real document of the real goals that drive the European Parliament in particular”. At the time, the doctoral student reserved this analysis for the site of the Alliance for the Sovereignty of France (ASF ), asking the recipient of his letter, Francis Choisel, president and founder of this marginal right-wing sovereigntist association, to put it online. “He was best known for his ideas on Germany and the European Union. Since then, I have lost sight of him, explains the person concerned, who resumes, hesitantly: “Why are we talking about him? He made controversial remarks, right?”
At the heart of conspiratorial circles
to say the least. In July, in front of a full house, a Pierre Hillard aged over twenty years gave a presentation far removed from his fears about German domination in Brussels. “The naturalization of the Jews in 1791 opens the door to immigration. Because from the moment you give French naturalization to the Jews, sooner or later you cannot refuse it to Buddhists, Muslims, etc., develops- When Eric Zemmour rightly criticizes the migratory invasion, he forgets to say that it was his co-religionists who opened the doors to immigration”. At the fifth edition of the summer university of the Civitas organization, which hosts this conference, his declarations do not cause a scandal, on the contrary. “If we restore the laws of Catholicism and make traditional Catholicism a state religion, perhaps we should return to the situation before 1789,” he continues, before being applauded.
This intervention led to a reaction from the Minister of the Interior. “Anti-Semitism has no place in our country. I strongly condemn these ignominious remarks”, indicated this August 7 on Twitter Gérald Darmanin, announcing in the wake of having “seized the Public Prosecutor” and asked his ” services to instruct the dissolution of Civitas”. The author of this logorrhea is a regular at these projections. Obsessed with the “new world order” – to which he has devoted several books – and, more generally, with “the Jews”, Hillard has gradually become one of the figures of French conspiracy and anti-Semitic circles.
Close to sovereignist circles
Accustomed to the margins, the man however started in much more respectable circles. Born in 1966, he entered the association at the dawn of his thirties. In 1998, while the Treaty of Amsterdam was being negotiated – which aimed to outline judicial cooperation between countries of the European Union -, Hillard joined a very young association: the Alliance for the Sovereignty of France (ASF), founded by Francis Choisel, RPR general adviser for Hauts-de-Seine, and Bernard Chalumeau, local manager of Philippe de Villiers’ Movement for France.
The organization, one of the first beginnings of the French sovereigntist fabric, brings together a panel of “co-opted” personalities. We meet Louis Aliot, then regional adviser National Front of Midi-Pyrénées, the deputies Jacques Myard and Christine Boutin, or the future president of Radio Courtoisie Henry de Lesquen, since condemned several times for incitement to hatred, public insults and finding of crimes against humanity. Pierre Hillard, then just thirty years old, exhibited his work in political science there, without necessarily succeeding in hitting the mark. “He was quite moderate in relation to the sovereignist fight, present but not very active, remembers Francis Choisel. He wrote a lot on Germany, but as our association was above all sovereigntist, we made little use of his work”.
Noticed by Action Française
In fact, Hillard is passionate about his subject, to the point of turning it into a book. Minorities and regionalisms in the federal Europe of the regions: investigation of the German plan which will upset Europe, published in 2001 by François-Xavier de Guibert, is prefaced by the sovereignist MEP Paul-Marie Couteaux, then close to Charles Pasqua and Philippe de Villiers, also a member of the ASF. “I had been his teacher and director of memory, remembers the latter. He had therefore asked me to write the preface”. Its afterword is written by the historian Edouard Husson, future close to Marion Maréchal. In the early 2000s, all this little world froze in the sovereignist milieu. It is therefore almost natural that Hillard seeks to get closer to Jean-Pierre Chevènement, then presidential candidate. “He had made him an offer of service and I had directly rejected this request, remembers political scientist Jean-Yves Camus, then pen of the speeches of the Chevènementist deputy Georges Sarre. He was at the time in a form of rather paranoid sovereignism , which was interested in the blasting of the nation-state by a lobby and which foreshadowed his future obsessions”.
To promote this request – aborted – Hillard avails himself of a sponsor, General Pierre-Marie Gallois, a geopolitical scientist whom he was able to meet at the ASF, but also during his collaborations for Balkans Infos, of which he is a member of the drafting committee. On the website of the monthly, which intends to free itself from “one-size-fits-all thinking” and “political correctness”, the researcher continues to develop his theses on “the final plan” for the regionalization of Europe. “All this was prepared in advance,” he wrote, seeing in the European Union a plan for German supremacy enabled through the United States. He also continues to work on his thesis, which he defended in 2006 at the University of Paris-Descartes. covering The ambiguities of Germany in the European construction, it is headed by Edmond Jouve, an iconoclastic political scientist known in particular for his trips to North Korea. His thesis, which receives the mention “very honorable”, is also hailed in the bi-monthly of the French Actiona far-right royalist movement.
More and more focused on identity
He quickly moves away from the shores of research to devote himself to his hobbies. Since 2007, he has published The irresistible market of the new world order (Ed. François-Xavier De Guibert), where he denounces “globalism”, followed by The Bertelsmann Foundation and global governance in 2009. His books meet only a very confidential success (he sells less than 2000 copies). At the same time, he taught international relations for several years at the ESCE (External Trade School). However, from 2008, he attended the events of Equality and Reconciliation, the very young formation of the far-right essayist Alain Soral, created a year earlier. He even gave a lecture at the Main d’Or theater, then managed by Dieudonné. “It is relayed a year later on the E & R site with the evocative title ‘Towards global governance?’ where he explains that there is a great globalist project consisting in making nations disappear to mix all peoples in a great world state”, explains Christophe Le Dréau, historian, specialist in European construction. It is the famous “new world order”. He will never leave this entourage again. He prefaces the work of Claire Severac, The Secret War Against the Peoples, published by Kontre Kulture, Alain Soral’s publishing house. Then he continues to meet with Sylvain Durain, author and publisher, with whom he regularly denounces “Jewish messianism”. Ten years later, he will even be a witness at the trial of Alain Soral for the publication of anti-Semitic cartoons on the Egalité et Réconciliation website.
Demonstrators hold flags during a demonstration called by the fundamentalist Catholic organization Civitas in front of the statue of Joan of Arc, on May 8, 2016 in Paris.
© / afp.com/FRANCOIS GUILLOT
Increasingly radical, Hillard is no longer a teacher at the ESCE, but continues to contribute to sites such as Boulevard Voltaire, Voltaire Network, and intervenes on Radio courtesy. “Hillard gave an interview to Islam and Info, an identity site close to the Muslim Brotherhood, also explains Bernard Bruneteau, historian, professor emeritus of political science at Rennes 1 University. expresses much more freely there than in his works”. After 2010, Hillard’s worries about European regionalism gave way to another anxiety. “He identifies the starting point of the ‘globalist mysticism’ in the messianism of ‘Talmudic Judaism’ at the origin of all the evils of modernity, continues the historian. At the service of this globalist mystique, we find “agents ” historical: universalist revolutionaries, Anglo-Saxon leaders, Europeanists, “global Zionists”. The former researcher took up all the elements of conspiracy theory and old anti-Semitic themes.
This speech, however delirious it may be, has found its audience. On Facebook, Pierre Hillard has 23,000 subscribers. He regularly tours the conferences of organizations such as Equality and Reconciliation or Civitas, where he sometimes sells his works. Their sale is also less confidential than that of his first books. According to Edistat, book sales statistics in France, the two editions ofAtlas of Globalism (Ed. Le Retour aux Sources), at 45 euros each, sold nearly 8,000 copies. Her Chronicles of Globalism (Ed. Culture And Roots)? 5,745 copies. same for me Archives of globalism, war against the Old and New Testament, sold 5,350 copies. Also according to Edistat, his last six books, all devoted to his obsession against “globalism”, have garnered a total turnover of 940,000 euros. His conspiratorialism has found its audience. And it should also be noted that the books sold on the sidelines of the many conferences that Hillard gives are not counted, since they are outside the circuit of bookstores and supermarkets.
Long confined to the spheres of French Action and E & R, the man seems, moreover, to have found a new fruitful fight in the anti-vaccine conspiracy. “For him, the pandemic would be an instrument used by globalist forces to condition people to the tracing allowed by the vaccine”, explains Jean-Yves Camus. Twenty-four hours after Gérald Darmanin’s announcement of the dissolution of Civitas, Pierre Hillard also gave a 2-hour “videoconference” hosted by Pierrick Thevenon, a firefighter close to the anti-vaccine movements.