The prosecutor has requested firm imprisonment against the far-right Barjols group, suspected of having prepared an attack against Emmanuel Macron.
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© BENOIT PEYRUCQ / AFP
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Tthirteen activists from the ultra-right Barjols group appear before the Paris court. They are suspected of having prepared violent actions against migrants, mosques or elected officials. Sentences ranging from one year suspended to five years in prison, as well as an acquittal, were requested on Thursday. The heaviest sentence was claimed against Jean-Pierre Bouyer for his role deemed “driving” in a plan to assassinate Emmanuel Macron at the end of 2018.
The anti-terrorism prosecutor has requested three years in prison against Denis Collinet, the founder of this small group which conveyed an “ideology of chaos” and was an “incubator of violent actions”. Throughout her indictment, the prosecutor endeavored to restore to this file its “exact nature”: “It cannot be the subject of a binary analysis”, she detailed, “there is no is neither nothing nor everything”.
If their projects may seem “wacky” or unfinished, the “active” members of the Barjols have indeed taken part in training and preparatory meetings to attack elected officials or migrant camps, with the objective that “fear is changing sides,” claimed the representative of the prosecution.
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“Common points” with the jihadists
According to her, the plan to assassinate the head of state in early November 2018, of which 4 of the 13 defendants are suspected, is “the culmination of everything that has happened before within the Barjols”. Responding in advance to the defense, the prosecutor admitted that the Barjols were “animated by a social revolt” which echoes the movement of yellow vests, then in full bloom. But establishing a parallel between the two movements would amount, according to her, to “twisting the neck of the reality of the facts”.
The Barjols, she argued, were not focused on fuel prices or 80 km / h, but on a double “obsession”: “hate” against migrants and against Emmanuel Macron. To establish the dangerousness of the defendants, the prosecutor noted “common points” with the jihadists. The same “fascination for violence” and the same fight against “the impure”: the “unbelievers” in one case, the migrants in the other.
“Would we dare, if this file was linked to jihadism, to tell you that the material elements are insufficient? “She launched in court, adding:” Why should we have more leniency in an ultra-right case? End of the debates scheduled for Friday.
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