ExtremismFrench Far-Right Militia Dissolved by Government Decree
The French government yesterday voted to dissolve a far-right militia called Génération Identitaire (GI). The ministry of the interior has already used dissolution decrees against three Islamist groups, and, in October 2020, it dissolved the Turkish ultranationalist group “Gray Wolves.” The moves, led by the hard-charging Minister of the Gerald Darmanin, are part of the Macron government’s decision to confront extremists more forcefully.
In mid-January, France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced his plan to dissolve the far-right militia group Génération Identitaire (GI) for “promoting hate speech” and turning the organization into “private militia.”
On Wednesday, 3 March, the dissolution of the group has gone into effect, after the Council of Ministers unanimously voted for it.
“This group and some of its activists must be regarded as promoting hate speech and inciting discrimination or violence against individuals because of their origin, their race and their religion,” the minister of the interior said. And “by its structure and its military organization,” GI“ may be regarded as having the characteristics of a private militia,”, Darmanin said in the decree of dissolution.
The move toward dissolution was launched in mid-February with an official letter to the GI leadership, giving them until 24 February to respond. The move was immediately denounced by Marine Le Pen’s populist, far-right National Rally (RN) as a “political” procedure and “a dangerous attack on fundamental freedoms.”
The government’s dissolution decree also mentions “links with ultra-right groups from which [GI] receives logistical support and which defend an ideology calling for discrimination, violence or hatred in the name of racialist or supremacist theories.”
The government’s document notes that the group received donations from Brenton Tarrant, the perpetrator of the Christchurch, New Zealand massacre which killed 51 people in March 2019.
Clément Martin, a spokesperson for the Lyon-based GI, warned that GI would file an “abuse of power” appeal with the Council of State. “On the purely legal side, we’re pretty confident. The question is whether the Council of State is going to play politics or will they follow the law,” he said.
Gilles-William Goldnadel, one of the lawyers of GI, tweeted that “As much as a political crime against democracy, [the decree is] a moral attack against the French people.” Philippe Olivier, adviser to Marine Le Pen, said that “this arbitrary dissolution sign[ed] the subjugation of France to the slogans of globalization.”
GI was created in 2012 in Lyon in eastern France. It claims 2,800 members, but the police estimate that the number of hard-core activists is about 800 at most.
GI’s public actions tend to be headline-grabbing anti-Muslim spectacles, such as the 2017 occupation of the roof of a mosque under construction in Poitiers. A group of activists barricaded themselves on the roof, chanting anti-Muslim slogans an unfurling large banners calling for expelling Muslins from France.
Over the years, several activists from the GI were arrested and charged for various violations, and some even spent a few years in jail.
The ministry of the interior has already used dissolution decrees against three Islamist groups, and, in October 2020, it dissolved the Turkish ultranationalist group “Gray Wolves.”
The moves, led by the hard-charging Darmanin, are part of the Macron government’s decision to confront extremists more forcefully.
