On the sidelines of the anti-sanitary pass procession last weekend, far-right leader Marc de Cacqueray-Valmenier was arrested. Incarcerated, he was sentenced Friday to a year in prison for the attack on a Parisian bar emblematic of the anti-fascist movement.
After last Saturday’s demonstration into which far-right activists infiltrated, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced that he had arrested leaders of the Zouaves, an ultra-right group. “Nazi inscriptions comparing people who were not vaccinated with Jews from the 1940s have been found in the streets of Paris. There were leaders of the Zouaves, this far-right group (…) who had done the punches in a meeting of Mr Zemmour” denounced Gérald Darmanin.
The perpetrator of this violence was notably Marc de Cacqueray-Valmenier. This 23-year-old young man, well known to the police, is not on his first outing to promote his extremist beliefs. It is none other than the leader of the Zouaves, an association freshly dissolved in the Council of Ministers. Originally from an aristocratic and traditionalist Catholic family, he had several experiences in far-right and neo-Nazi small groups such as Action Française. He recognizes himself in the fascist movement.
The Zouaves, a well-organized small group
This group is “at the origin of numerous and recurring violent acts”, “openly racist” and “regularly broadcasts images containing the symbols of Nazi ideology”, further declared the Minister of the Interior. The association was created in 2018 by former members of the GUD and the hooligan movement. The term Zouaves comes from a unit of the French army present in Algeria dissolved in 1962. This unit was one of the last to have fought against the FLN (National Liberation Front, Algerian political party).
The new Zouaves are not their first infiltration of a demonstration. During Act III of the Yellow Vests on December 1, 2018, members of the Zouaves resorted to violence to escalate the situation between demonstrators and the police. Also in 2019, far-right members infiltrated the procession of NPA (New Anti-Capitalist Party) protesters. More recently, the Zouaves caused a stir when they beat up SOS Racisme activists present at Eric Zemmour’s meeting last December. Several people were then arrested. Marc de Cacqueray-Valmenier had thus been indicted for “ aggravated intentional violence” and “intentional violence in meetings “. He had been placed under judicial supervision.
Incarcerated, he was sentenced Friday to a year in prison for the attack on a Parisian bar emblematic of the anti-fascist movement.
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