Eight people close to the ultra-right were sentenced Tuesday to prison for acts of aggravated violence of a racist nature and sexist insult committed one night in June in a working-class district of the center of Bordeaux.
Dressed in black or fatigues, masked faces and gas in hand for some, they had traveled on June 25, 2022 around 2 am, "on the return of a festive evening between friends" according to them, the streets of the Saint-Michel district, known for its ethnic and social mix. According to footage broadcast at the hearing, they had shouted nationalist slogans, made monkey cries and Nazi salutes, which they contested, and participated in a pitched fight with local youths. Some were members of the nationalist Bordeaux group, which was dissolved in February.
Seven of them, all absent from the sentencing, like their lawyers, were sentenced to two years in prison, one of which was suspended. The last, present Tuesday, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, 12 of which were suspended. The court closely followed the submissions of the deputy prosecutor who had evoked, at the end of March at the hearing, a "real punitive expedition". They will serve their sentence under electronic monitoring and will have to pay a fine of 800 euros for sexist contempt.
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'Ideas that can be disturbing'
At the hearing, these men aged between 19 and 38, living in the Bordeaux metropolis or on the Basque coast, mostly workers or apprentices with a clean criminal record, had denied the Nazi character of salutes made arms outstretched, speaking of "Roman salute" or gestures of "ultras of football", such as monkey cries, evoking "Spartan cries".
One defendant had recognized "ideas that can disturb", another said he was close to those of the National Rally and a third, a cross tattooed on the back of his shaved head, said he refused the "disappearance of European culture" and denounced the "scum" of the France. In the last presidential election, he was "excited by the candidate Zemmour". The defendants said they were unaware that Kühnen's three-fingered salute, as some perform in a group photo taken the same evening in front of an antifa bar, is considered a reference to the Third Reich. "It's family, homeland and a 3rd thing," defended one of them.
Putting the excesses on the account of an "evening too drunk", they had denied having come "to provoke". According to the least heavily sentenced defendant, the others called every person of color a "monkey" and "their insults also revolved around homosexuals."
Two of the defendants appeared in the same court in April for having, with seven other people, unfurled an anti-LGBT banner at the passage of the Pride march and insulted participants on June 12 in Bordeaux. The judgement is expected on 26 May.
The Bordeaux nationalist movement is suspected of having tagged the buildings of several associations, mosques and parliamentary offices in recent months, and of having disrupted a conference of two LFI deputies at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne.
