Dissolution of Generation Identity: the questions raised by this project of the Ministry of the Interior

Jean-Yves Camus is an associate researcher at IRIS.

A specialist in ultra-right, he heads the Observatory of Political Radicalities at the Jean

Jaurès

Foundation

.

FIGAROVOX.-The Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin mentioned the possibility of a dissolution of the militant group “Generation Identity”.

What does this initiative inspire you?

Do you think it is justified from a legal point of view?

Jean-Yves CAMUS.

-From a legal point of view, the debate revolves around two paragraphs of article L.212-1 of the Internal Security Code, which takes up the old provisions of the law of 1936 on combat groups and private militias .

Paragraph 2 concerns movements "

".

However, the recent jurisprudence (2014) of the Council of State validated the dissolution of the French Work by retaining that it organized "

Without looking to see whether the paramilitary nature of this summer camp had or not the character of a real preparation for a coup or terrorism, which, in my opinion, was not the case.

Génération Identitaire (GI) also organizing a summer school including activities such as boxing, will we hold this fact against the group, even though it announces, publicly, the content of its camp?

Personally, the initiative leaves me doubtful because the dissolution is an exorbitant measure compared to the administrative police.

A possible decree of dissolution could also invoke paragraph 6, which makes it possible to prohibit a group "causing discrimination, hatred or violence towards a person or a group of persons because of their origin or their membership. or their non-membership of an ethnic group, nation, race or religion ”.

It will be up to the administration, then possibly to the administrative judge, to determine whether the action carried out in the Pyrenees falls within these categories, whereas the movement justified it by "the terrorist threat which remains very high at the national level" and “Movements of migrants which remain supported”.

Strictly speaking, “migrants” are neither an ethnic group, nor a race, nor a religious group, only the criterion of foreign origin seems to me to be able to be taken into account.

Legally, this makes a case, but the defense will be able to argue that GI is neither a movement seeking to overthrow the republican form of the state, nor a terrorist movement.

Personally, the initiative leaves me doubtful because the dissolution is an exorbitant measure compared to the administrative police.

The offenses committed, if any, by the members of these movements can perfectly be punished in criminal proceedings and the association, as a legal person, prosecuted in criminal proceedings.

This is what happened after the GI operation in the Alps.

Some commentators compare Génération Identitaire to a “militia” such as they might have existed in the 1930s. Others even draw a parallel with Daesh in the display of symbols.

Are these comparisons relevant?

How do you qualify the Generation Identity group?

GI is an ethno-differentialist movement.

Unlike the RN, which is assimilationist, the identitarians do not believe that non-European foreigners (in the sense of the word "Caucasian" in the Anglo-Saxon world) can be assimilated into the French nation, even when they profess a Christian religion. .

They believe that "remigration" is the solution to the "Grand Replacement", where the RN advocates zero immigration.

They believe that each people and each culture can flourish only on its ancestral land and in the historical setting, the natural setting, which is its own.

Where the RN considers the DOMiens as French, the identities certainly do not have the same perception.

Is it a militia in the sense of the 1930s?

Certainly not.

Neither by number, nor by armament, nor by factious activities, very real in the 1930s when, all sides combined, politics could be carried out with revolver shots.

No parallel is possible with Daesh, whose French followers are killing French people, which carries out massive terrorist attacks against civilians, which uses common law crime to finance jihad and which, moreover, has at least attempted to establish a semblance of state reality in the Syrian-Iraqi zone.

GI is an ethno-differentialist movement.

Unlike the RN, which is assimilationist, the identitarians do not believe that non-European foreigners can be assimilated into the French nation.

Activists in this group compare themselves to Greenpeace in their use of the media.

What do you think?

I would not compare Generation Identity to Greenpeace, anyway!

But the movement is indeed, from its beginnings, a past master in the art of making agit-prop through videos and social networks, by relaying live its most impactful actions which, moreover, make "subjects". Easily picked up by the mainstream media.

Which, even when GI is denigrated, gives him an important cause of resonance.

GI sends very simple messages, addressing concerns that the RN deals with in a less drastic way so as not to re-demonize themselves.

It should also be noted that GI speaks to the general media, which many of its competitors do not do, who camp on a defiance of principle, or even on a hostility that is sometimes put into action.

Does not censorship risk being counterproductive?

I am embarrassed by the multiplication of requests for dissolution coming from all over the place.

Some, on the right, target the black blocs, which are not a constituted political group, or even call for the dissolution of anti-fascist groups of anarcho-libertarian inspiration.

On the left, as today in the center-right, it is the extreme right which is the object of regular requests for prohibition.

There is more consensus on the dissolution of radical Islamist associations, but some want to broaden the spectrum and target political Islam, for example Salafism, Wahhabism and the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.

However, the existing legal arsenal, provided there is little of course the political will to use it, seems to me sufficient to act effectively.

Dissolve, for example, associations that run mosques calling for terrorism and hatred, very good.

But a handful of bans do not overcome a phenomenon that is measured too late, and perhaps not yet sufficiently.

A dissolution is above all a political measure.

It shows the priorities of a government, the hierarchy of dangers it believes to discern for the Republic

Several far-right groups had been dissolved after the Clément Méric affair (a young anti-fa activist who died in a fight with skinheads in 2013).

Had it been effective?

We must be clear: a dissolution is above all a political measure.

It shows the priorities of a government, the hierarchy of dangers it believes it discerns for the Republic.

The real constructive, lasting and effective work is that of intelligence.

The dissolutions following the Méric affair had two drawbacks.

First, some (French Work, Nationalist Youth) targeted movements having no relation to the facts and punished "for the whole of their work".

Then, as always, the results are mixed in terms of efficiency.

Troisième Voie suffered a halt but the French Work continues in other forms.

The premises operated by Serge Ayoub disappeared (even though the Council of State canceled the dissolution of the managing association) but there are other identical places across the country.

And if we look at the dissolutions of 2017, the Social Bastion saw some of its militants resurface at Les Zouaves or create new local associative structures.