Alexandre Chauveau / Photo credit: Xose Bouzas / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
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10:35 a.m., May 10, 2023
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin wants to be firm a few days after an ultra-right demonstration in the heart of Paris. The latter asks the prefect to ban all ultra-right demonstrations in France. A welcome announcement and which at the same time wants to hinder the RN.
Hooded demonstrators, dressed in black and carrying fascist flags or symbols in the heart of Paris. After the ultra-right demonstration last Saturday in the capital, the Minister of the Interior Gérard Darmanin finally speaks on the subject and asks the prefect to ban all ultra-right demonstrations in France. But this call for firmness is not entirely devoid of political ulterior motives.
Because in this demonstration were two former relatives of Marine Le Pen: Axel Loustau and Olivier Duguet, both ex-members of the GUD and former treasurers of the National Front, via the micro-party Jeanne. Two personalities whose proximity Marine Le Pen disputes. “I do not feel close to all those who have had responsibilities in the party”, justifies the president of the RN in the Assembly.
A sterile strategy?
An attempt to abort a nascent controversy maintained by Gérald Darmanin, who successively uses the terms ultra-right and extreme right to qualify these small groups. The Minister of the Interior also recalls the official dissolution of several associations such as Les Zouaves or Génération identitaire, as if to better mark his ability to fight the far right.
But this strategy is considered sterile within the National Rally. The party also brought out a letter dating from the end of December and addressed to Gérald Darmanin, in which Marine Le Pen requests the dissolution of all violent small groups, whatever their political profile, stipulates the letter. A way once again for the RN to distance itself from these ultra-right associations as the party pursues its stabilization strategy.