The day after a hectic weekend, the parish priest of the Croix Rousse just explained how he could have been duped.
The Saint-Augustin room, located rue Jacquard, on the Croix Rousse plateau, and rented this Saturday as very often, was the scene of a gathering of dozens of activists from ultra-right groups from all over France. , gathered in Lyon for a “colloquium on local identity”.
A rally organized at the initiative of Lyon Populaire - reminiscent of the ephemeral Social Bastion, itself from Gud -, but sheltering behind a screen, as confirmed by several sources close to the file in
Figaro
.
It is indeed the Lyon association Scutum, presenting itself as specialized in
"the
, who got in touch with Father Laurent Jullien de Pommerol and rented the room for a few tens of euros,
“just enough to cover the costs”
.
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"Breach of trust"
The priest finally filed a complaint on Monday at the Croix Rousse police station for breach of trust.
Because the screen association presents itself on the internet as having worked with the diocese of Lyon, which formally denies.
“It is completely false!
, we cut rue Adolphe Max.
The parish priest has lodged a complaint and he has our full support
.
“It is obvious that if we had known the exact content of this gathering we would never have authorized it and the premises would not have been made available”
, explained by way of press release the priest, specifying to
Figaro .
having received the testimony of shocked residents.
He also adds that the parish only authorizes the rental of its Saint-Augustin hall for meetings without a political character, essentially general meetings of co-ownership in general.
Scutum, which had been
"recommended to him by a colleague"
, however indicates on an associative directory online having
"helped associations"
such as the March for Life or the Manif pour tous.
Contacted, the structure did not respond to our requests.
Up close
If the priest says he understood later and while he was not in Lyon this weekend the real motivations of the tenants, the state services, they closely followed this gathering.
Especially since the weekend opened with a first meeting at the bar La Traboule, headquarters of the association Les Rempart Lyon, named after this small group born from the ashes of Génération identitaire at the dissolution of the movement in 2021. Senator Stéphane Ravier, elected under the RN label before switching to Reconquest, was present for a conference.
On Saturday, police crews were thus able to be deployed preventively around the Saint-Augustin hall.
A police presence which was able to dissuade the move to action while around fifty activists, some of whom were hooded,
descended in the evening towards the slopes of the Croix Rousse, known for their engagement on the far left.
According to our information, they could have wanted to attack again the anarchist bookstore La Plume noire, already attacked in March 2021. The spokesperson for the ultra-left movement Young Guard and candidate for the last legislative elections in this sector, Raphaël Arnaud, for his part, assures that passers-by would have been intimidated by these activists dressed in black.
The security assistant of the City of Lyon, Mohamed Chihi (EELV), calls for continuing
"the work started"
.
“In Lyon, which is the epicenter and at the conjunction of violent far-right movements, we have an obligation to work effectively and it is the will of the mayor,” he assures
Le
Figaro
.
A conference was thus held in the premises of the town hall of the first arrondissement at the end of January to ask for "
the closure of the fascist premises
".
The La Traboule bar had just been the subject of an administrative closure under the former municipality, which had taken advantage of a breach by pointing out irregularities in the regulations of establishments open to the public.
But the premises had reopened after compliance work.