His word is rare as much as his agents are discreet. Nicolas Lerner, the boss of the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), the French internal intelligence services, grants, this Sunday, July 9, a long interview with the daily newspaper The world. He draws up an assessment of the terrorist threat in France.
If jihadist terrorism decreases in intensity, Nicolas Lerner says to himself ” concerned by the recourse to violence on the side of the ultra-left on the environmental question, while rejecting however the qualifier eco-terrorist “. For the boss of the DGSI, the threat is changing above all in form, and is increasingly taking on the face of the far right.
Ten plans for ultra-right terrorist attacks have been foiled since 2017 in France. The threat is known to the intelligence services. It has been increasing since 2015, years when several terrorist attacks jihadists strike France. Far-right cells become radicalized. It is since the beginning of this year that Nicolas Lerner notes ” a worrying resurgence of violent actions on the part of the ultra-right in an assumed break with the democratic framework “.
A violence that becomes commonplace
The targets are no longer just citizens of Muslim, Jewish or Freemason faiths, but elected representatives of the Republic, in particular mayors. He cites those of Saint-Brevin-les-Pinsor Callac, municipalities where the installation of reception centers for asylum seekers or refugees, has been strongly contested by the far right.
Ultra-right networks are mutating. New profiles are emerging: conspirators, conspirators… Fueled by algorithmic confinement on social networks, the health crisis, the influence of radical ideologies from across the Atlantic.
These outbreaks of violence tend to become commonplace, he says in this interview with the newspaper The world. They are the result of solitary individuals or small cells. The movement is estimated at 2,000 members in France.
DECRYPTION – Far-right violence, a threat to our democracies?