Benjamin Peter, with AFP
modified to
8:32 p.m., November 17, 2021
Two activists from the ultra-right movement who called for “violent actions” were arrested on Tuesday, one in Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne) and the other in Gironde, then placed in police custody by the general management. internal security (DGSI). The two men were spotted, according to judicial and police sources, by exchanges on encrypted Telegram messaging. Their police custody can last a maximum of 96 hours given the suspicions hanging over them. They were to be transferred Wednesday to the headquarters of the DGSI in Paris.
Their arrest took place as part of a preliminary investigation by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office opened for “terrorist criminal association and direct provocation by a means of online communication to an act of terrorism”, a judicial source told AFP. During the searches carried out, “several dozen weapons of all kinds (long and short weapons, ammunition etc.), as well as materials used in the composition of explosives” were discovered, according to a police source.
Two men aged 46 and 60
The man arrested in Montauban is a 46-year-old municipal employee gardener from this city, according to the judicial source, confirming information from The Midi Dispatch. The mayor of Montauban, Axel de Labriolle, expressed in a press release his “confidence in the police services and in the justice system to shed light on this file”.
The other man, aged 60, was arrested, also on Tuesday in a hamlet of Saint-Denis-de-Pile, a town of 5,700 inhabitants, in the heart of Libournais. The mayor, Fabienne Fonteneau, explained to AFP that although he was from the town, he was “not particularly well known”, having returned to live there “about ten years ago”. “However, he had been talked about a long time ago, because he had been convicted of a homicide on the person of his brother-in-law,” continued the chosen one. According to sources familiar with the matter, he was released from prison about ten years ago.
Belonging to the “accelerationist” tendency
Fabienne Fontenau described him as “a discreet man, without history with his neighbors”, who “did not participate in community life, nor in local life”. Separated, he lived alone and has adult children. The two activists exchanged regularly to make “weapons purchases”, said the police source.
They both belong to a so-called “accelerationist” tendency, which aims to provoke or encourage clashes between communities. They are also adept at survivalism. The two men have, according to a source familiar with the matter, no link with Rémy Daillet, a figure of conspiracy imprisoned in the case of the kidnapping last spring of little Mia, and indicted on October 22 for plots of attacks. Since 2017, several plans for violent action by the ultra-right, in particular targeting political figures, have been thwarted.