Who are the far-right activists arrested in Paris on the evening of France-Morocco?

One participated in Eric Zemmour’s meetings and claims to want to join the gendarmerie, a second is part of messaging groups called “Hitler” or “ANTI PD”, a third tries to delete a secure messaging application from his phone before that the investigators do not seize it, without success.

Thirty-eight individuals close to the radical far right were arrested on Wednesday, December 14, after the semi-final of the Football World Cup between France and Morocco. Among them: fifteen S files.

Read also: After the France-Morocco match, 266 arrests, including 167 in Paris, the left denounces “ratonnades” from the ultra-right

It is precisely 10:05 p.m., the final whistle has just sounded, releasing a blue tide in the streets of the capital. But a crowd mixing balaclavas and “offensive means” catches the eye of the police, at the exit of a bar on 17e capital district. The result is thirty-eight placements in police custody for “participation in a group with a view to committing degradation or violence”, some add to it “participation with a weapon in a crowd”. All are part of the “extreme right movement”according to investigators.

Tear gas, telescopic baton

Aged 17 to 36, the thirty-eight in custody mostly come from the Paris region, but some have traveled from Rouen or Rennes. Many are known for their membership in various far-right groups: from the former GUD to the Zouaves, through Generation Identity or the Social Bastion, the last three having been dissolved by the Council of Ministers.

The results of the searches tell of the violence prepared to the bottom of the pockets, and the turn that the evening could have taken: several teargas, a telescopic baton, a shin guard, black or military camouflage balaclavas, shelled gloves, as well as a backpack containing “various weapons of category D” and smoke bombs, thrown by one of the arrested without the investigators being able to determine which one. A military firefighter card, a legionnaire card and a military circulation card are also entered.

On this 22-year-old S file, these are stickers of the GUD – for “union defense group”, an ultraviolent far-right self-dissolved small group which seems to be returning to the forefront of the radical scene – which have been found. He explains in police custody that before the match, he distributed leaflets in front of the University of Paris-II-Panthéon-Assas to “expel the leftists”. Then he went to the bar, with a well-known friend of the police and the justice system: Marc de Cacqueray-Valmenier.

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