Twelve former members of the dissolved ultra-right group Génération Identitaire, accused of having illegally reconstituted a new association, were arrested in several cities in France on Tuesday March 12, according to several judicial sources from Agence France-Presse (AFP), confirming information from BFM-TV.
Four other people are still wanted, according to one of these sources with AFP. Several of the former executives of Génération Identitaire are suspected of “having regrouped within a new association called Argos” whose objectives would be “close” to the dissolved movement, again according to one of these sources with AFP.
On its website, the Argos association claims to defend “our multi-millennial civilization, mutilated by decades of progressive delusions, forced amnesia and submission to other civilizations.”
Net shot
“Searchs took place this morning, at 6 a.m., throughout France among those who dared to resist (Paris, Lyon, Savoie, etc.),” said activists from the ultra-right movement, confirming the location of the searches provided by judicial sources from the AFP.
This dragnet comes as part of an investigation opened for “participation in the maintenance or reconstitution of an organization” after “a report by Article 40 from the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin,” said one sources close to the case.
“We have an acceleration, a multiplication of procedures against the identity movement which is akin to political persecution”, reacted to AFP the lawyer Pierre-Vincent Lambert, who presents himself as “the counsel of one party of those involved.”
“We have cases that have been [dormant] for years that we are bringing back to the courts. For a poster, a banner or a small action, that’s forty-eight hours of police custody and almost systematic searches,” added Mr. Lambert, who denounces “disproportionate means.”
“Ideology inciting discrimination”
On September 9, 2023, twelve people, some in possession of weapons, were arrested and placed in police custody in Cherbourg during an undeclared gathering organized by a small group of the far-right identity group. These people were also part of the Argos movement, which aims to be the heir of Génération identitaire, dissolved in March 2021 by a decree in the council of ministers.
At the time, the civil liberties sub-directorate of the Ministry of the Interior relied on article L212.1 of the internal security code, which allows the dissolution of “associations or de facto groups (…) which present, by their military form and organization, the character of combat groups or private militias”; “or which provokes discrimination, hatred or violence against a person or a group of people because of their origin, (…) their membership or non-membership (…) to an ethnic group, a nation , a so-called race or a specific religion.”
The ministry considered that Génération identitaire, declared to the Rhône prefecture on July 17, 2012, was promoting “in reality, through its interventions, its publications and the actions of its members and leaders, [of] an ideology inciting the discrimination of individuals because of their non-membership of the French nation or calling for hatred, violence against foreign nationals, by presenting immigration and Islam as threats that the French must fight and by maintaining deliberately confusing Muslims, immigrants and Islamists or terrorists.”