A neo-Nazi black metal festival banned in five departments of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region was organized against the advice of the authorities in a village in Isère, the department prefecture announced on Saturday.
The gendarmerie was deployed to carry out systematic checks around the village, the organizer refusing despite injunctions to cancel the event organized on February 24, the anniversary of the creation of Adolf Hitler's national socialist party, according to the same source.
The organizers risk up to six months of imprisonment and a fine of 7,500 euros and the participants a fourth class fine, punishable by a few hundred euros at most.
The authorities learned
“towards the end of the afternoon”
that the banned concert was being held in Vezeronce Curtin
“in a community hall which had been rented to an individual without the municipality knowing the reason or nature of this gathering”
prohibited in the department, the prefecture said in a press release.
Also read “Pieces to the glory of the Third Reich”: a new neo-Nazi concert banned in Lyon due to the pedigree of the singers
“Systematic checks with a view to prosecution”
The organizer of the
“Call of Terror”
festival was notified by the gendarmerie of the ban order but
“refused to respect its terms”
, according to the same source.
Five checkpoints were set up by the gendarmerie on the main access roads to this town of 2,000 inhabitants, less than an hour's drive from Lyon, one of the strongholds of the ultra-right.
These
“systematic checks”
are carried out with a view
to “prosecutions which may be brought against the organizers or participants”
, according to the prefecture.
The festival headlined the Polish group Graveland, known
“for its songs in praise of the Third Reich”
and others, such as
“Leibwätcher”
(bodyguard) in reference to the SS division responsible for close protection. of Adolf Hitler.
Announced on social networks without any other indication of location than
“Rhône Alpes Region”
, the event had been banned in five departments, including Isère, because
“close to neo-Nazi ideology”
and in order to
“prevent any attack on the 'public order'
, recalled the prefecture.