Several elected officials from Lyon once again urged the government on Tuesday to dissolve the ultra-right groups active in the city, with the prefect emphasizing the need to build a case that “stands up in court”.
The day before, some 300 people also marched on Monday evening in Lyon, at the call of several left-wing organizations, to relay this message.
Based on recent arrests in this movement and the dissolution of the Lille group La Citadelle, the environmentalist mayor Grégory Doucet and seven deputies from the Rhône majority sent separate letters to the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin.
They asked him again to dissolve two small groups - the Remparts and Lyon populaire - and to close a bar, La Traboule, as well as a combat sports hall, the Agogé, which they have in Old Lyon.
The prefect warns against haste
While saying she was ready to act “as quickly as possible”, the prefect of Rhône Fabienne Buccio warned against haste.
“The dissolution of associations (…) is done calmly and seriously (…) more than through demonstrations, letters or injunctions,” she said on BFM TV Lyon.
“I want us to do solid work and to stand up to justice,” she added, believing that the recent arrests made it possible to “fill out a solid case.”
💬 Ultra-right in Lyon: the prefect of the Rhône wishes to close "as quickly as possible" the Traboule, local of Lyon's identity groups, but once it has "solid" elements which can "stand in court" pic.twitter.com/ OwDnA6pFMD
— BFM Lyon (@BFMLyon) February 13, 2024
Seven suspected ultra-right activists were indicted on Friday for “criminal conspiracy”, almost three months after an attack on an association premises in Vieux Lyon where a conference on Gaza was taking place.
Two of them were imprisoned.
VIDEO.
Mortars, wounded… A conference on Palestine targeted by the ultra-right in Lyon
Furthermore, the former spokesperson for the Remparts, Sinisha Milinov, was sentenced to prison on Tuesday for a racist attack in early February while leaving a bar, with another young man.
Also read: Ultra-right: figures of the movement, S files… What we know about the arrests in Paris
The ultra-right, which brings together nearly 3,300 people in France, including 1,300 on S files, according to a recent parliamentary report, has spread across the entire territory but Lyon, one of its historic strongholds, is regularly the scene of banned demonstrations or of violence.