Gérald Darmanin announced Tuesday that he was going to request the dissolution of three small ultra-right groups, including the Division Martel, after violent demonstrations by activists in Romans-sur-Isère (Drôme), which gave rise to around thirty arrests . “I am going to propose the end of various small groups,” declared the Minister of the Interior to France Inter, referring to “a group called the Martel Division, just the name scares us, and two others of which I cannot “not mention names” for the moment.
Last weekend, ultra-right activists violently demonstrated in Romans-sur-Isère after the death of young Thomas, stabbed during a village festival in Drôme. They wanted to “fight it out”, according to the authorities, with young people from the Monnaie district, from which some of the people involved in the death of this 16-year-old high school student came. Gérald Darmanin welcomed the prison sentences of six participants in this demonstration.
“A mobilization that wants to push us into civil war”
The death of Thomas “should not allow someone else to stand up in the name of the State to do justice (…) There is a mobilization among the ultra-right which wants to push us into war civil”, assured the Minister of the Interior. According to him, the intervention of the police made it possible to “avoid an Irish scenario”, in reference to the riots which affected Dublin last week after a knife attack.
“Because it was firm, France avoided a scenario of a small civil war,” said Gérald Darmanin. Monday evening, eight people were also arrested and placed in police custody, suspected of having participated in an undeclared procession organized by the ultra-right in the center of Lyon. In France, nearly 3,300 people belong to this identity movement, including 1,300 on S files, according to a recent parliamentary report.