A dissolution procedure has been initiated in France against the far-right anti-migrant group Generation Identity, long demanded by several associations and political parties in the country, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced on Saturday evening.
“Identity generation: the dissolution procedure is underway,” tweeted the minister, specifying that the organization now had ten days to make its arguments.
The minister had mentioned this procedure on January 26, saying he was “scandalized” after an anti-migrant operation of the small group in the French Pyrenees which gave rise to the opening of a preliminary investigation for “public provocation to racial hatred” . SOS Racisme also lodged a complaint.
About thirty activists from the far-right group, in cars screened with “Defend Europe”, deployed on January 19 near the Spanish border, some going on hikes using a drone to monitor the border.
The actions of the small group could fall, according to the code of internal security (CSI), of “incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence against a person or a group of people because of their origin”.
The president of the far-right Rassemblement national party, Marine Le Pen, spoke out on January 27 against the project to dissolve Generation Identity, citing freedom of expression. “What scandalizes Mr. Darmanin must be dissolved. That is not the rule of law, ”she said.
In December, Génération Identitaire and three of its executives were released by the Grenoble Court of Appeal (South-East) for previous anti-migrant operations carried out in 2018 in the French Alps on the Franco-Italian border.
In 2019, the dissolutions of several ultra-right groups, including Bastion Social, Blood and Honor and Combat 18, were pronounced at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron, but that of Génération Identitaire appeared more difficult to materialize.
“They are smarter than the others, try as much as possible not to cross the yellow lines, but push the plug each time a little further”, then stressed to AFP the Ministry of the Interior.
The headquarters of Génération Identitaire is located in Lyon (South-East) but the association also has a historical section in Paris and branches in several provincial towns, in the South in Dijon, Aix-en-Provence and Montpellier as well as in Normandy (West).