The Zouaves, involved in the violence at the Zemmour meeting, in the sights of intelligence – The HuffPost

POLITICS – Ultra-right talk and hooligan methods. The small group the Zouaves, involved according to several media and witnesses on the spot in the violence committed during the meeting ofEric Zemmour, “Is the subject of a work” by the territorial intelligence with a view to a possible procedure of dissolution. This is what AFP learned this Friday, December 10 from a source close to the matter. “This group is the subject of work because of the actions committed”, according to information from the agency confirming those of the Parisian.

During the first campaign meeting of candidate Éric Zemmour in Villepinte, Sunday, December 5, peaceful activists from SOS Racism, who had displayed “No to racism” t-shirts, were attacked with punches, kicks and chairs by supporters of the polemicist. Several were injured.

About fifty people, identified by the police as belonging to the Zouaves, then posed at the end of the meeting for a photo shared on Telegram, chanting “We are at home”.

Informal group of about 20 men

“One of the attackers is a person who is a member of the Zouaves Paris […]. He was recognized by a person from the militant sphere, ”SOS Racisme president Dominique Sopo told AFP. According to several media, including Mediapart, Release and StreetPress, he is the one presented as the leader of the group, Marc Cacqueray from Valmeunier, sentenced in January 2019 to six months suspended prison sentence for violence during the demonstration of “yellow vests” on December 1 in Paris.

The spokesperson for the Young Guard, an far-left anti-fascist movement, also claimed to have recognized the leader in question:

The Zouaves are an informal group of about 20 men born mostly in the late 1990s, who are the heirs of GUD, the former far-right student union, and the radical fringe of the royalists of the ‘French action, according to Release.

According to StreetPress, several activists were also part of Identity generation before the dissolution of the association. It is a group of the “hooligan” type which brings together since 2018 “people who come from other more established groups, for violent and rapid actions”, explains Marion Jacquet-Vaillant, doctor in political science, specialist in identities to our colleagues. from AFP.

They have not filed statutes to form an association and present themselves as an unofficial group. But they can nevertheless correspond to “a de facto group” liable to commit “violent acts against people or property”, according to the criteria for dissolution defined by the internal security code.

Article L212-1 indeed stipulates that “Shave dissolved, by decree in the Council of Ministers, all associations or de facto groups ”. The article allows, among other things, to dissolve groups which “provoke armed demonstrations or violent acts against persons or property. […], present, by their military form and organization, the character of combat groups or private militias ”or even those“ engaged in […] to acts with a view to provoking acts of terrorism ”. The “Zouaves Paris” credo based on looting, lynching and brawl would meet the conditions of violence stipulated by the article of the internal security code.

On trial for the attack on bar Saint-Sauveur

During the same weekend as that of Eric Zemmour’s meeting, the violent group had also boasted on social networks – video in support – of having exploded the window of a newsstand in order to extract the poster from the LGBTQI + newspaper Stubbornrepresentative Bilal Hassani.

In June 2020, the Zouaves claimed responsibility for the attack with baseball bats and tear gas aerosols on the Saint-Sauveur bar, an emblematic place of the anti-fascist movement in the Ménilmontant district. During the trial in the Paris judicial court concerning this attack, six and ten months in prison were required in mid-November against two ultra-right activists, including Marc Cacqueray de Valmeunier and an acquittal for three others, for lack of sufficient evidence. The judgment is due on January 21.

Currently, according to information from Parisien, the authorities would therefore try to gather elements with a view to their dissolution. Since the beginning of the year, two ultra-right groups have been dissolved by the government: Génération Identitaire at the beginning of March and the Alvarium, located in Angers, at the end of October.

See also on The HuffPost: Clashes erupt in the middle of a Zemmour meeting, injured SOS Racism activists