A turning point for national anti -terrorist prosecution. After the racist attack and a person injured in Puget-Sur-argens died on Saturday, May 31, the PNAT took advantage of the investigation, the first for an attack linked to the ultra right on the French soil.
The PNAT took place because the claim message published shortly after the facts of the alleged content shooter, according to a source close to the investigation, “political statements” and a “speech hostile to immigration.”
“This terrorist file is on 20, which can be given to this movement” since 2017, he submitted to Jean-François Ricard, former national anti-terrorist prosecutor, on the BFMTV set, this Monday, June 2.
“It is the first as a crime committed, achieved, but is far from being the first,” he continues, evoking “quite serious businesses with small groups that trained to commit real massacres.”
19 projects of frustrated attacks since 2016
During a hearing before a Parliamentary Investigation Commission in 2016, Patrick Calvar, head of the DGSI, said Temer “an inevitable confrontation” between “the ultra world and the Muslim world.” The recent murders of Hichem Miraoui in Puget-Sur-argens and Aboubakar Cissé in a mosque in the Grand-Conbe on April 25 illustrate a change in the French security scene, in which the threat of ultra-right acquires an unprecedented scale.
This violence is directed “in particular against Muslims and people of Arab origin”, underlines a report on terrorism from afar in Europe since the 90s produced by the Extremism Research Center of the University of Oslo.
Since the end of 2016, the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) has frustrated 19 projects of attacks promoted by individuals or groups very well, against 40 for the Islamist threat, still considered a priority.
Similarities with the jihadist movement
The former national anti-terrorism prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard, weaves a link between the two movements in their structure and the equivalence of ideological transmissions. The members of this movement “are very marked by ideologies, particularly disseminated in the United States” but also popularized in France by the extreme right, and the emergence of political theories, including that of the “great replacement” initiated by the extreme right -wing writer Renaud Camus.
“There are American supremacist currents disseminated abundantly in networks with ultraviolent images of training fields, which will push a certain number of young people to register in this very radical logic with training fields in certain European countries in the east before returning with the intention of attacking in the territory,” he adds.
For Guillaume Burden, police justice consultant for BFMTV and associated investigator in CEVIPOF, “like other forms of terrorism, ultra -right terrorism does not arise from nothing. It feeds on certain communities such as enemies to fight.”
In Puget-Sur-argens, the suspect of the attack had virulent comments in videos of claims transmitted on social networks. In these videos, Christophe B. pronounced very hostile political speeches towards immigration and refers significantly to Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Front (FN) who became National Rally (RN).
Lack of organization
In addition, an essential characteristic separates jihadism and ultra right movement, to know, belong to an organization. “During the last thirty years, a great change” has been working, Jean-François Ricard has argued.
The only belonging to an organization made the law committed by the activist was a terrorist act. “Since then, things are much more diluted, very difficult to understand. For jihadists, there is a common ideology, here it is more complicated. Therefore, we must relate to the material elements of the archive, the claim in this case.”
Like the extreme right attacks perpetrated by Brenton Tarrant, in Christchurch in New Zealand, or Anders Breivik, in Oslo, the ultra-right attacks are generally the result of a single individual. For Jean-François Ricard, “it is in this sense that it is still a very disturbing threat.”
This destruction makes its identification more complex, even if the movement “is sometimes a little less cautious” online and on social networks, Paul Conge continues, justice of the journalist police in BFMTV and author of the book A murderers.
The terrorist qualification in debate
Article 421-1 of the Criminal Code, which defines the terrorist crime, requires that the facts intend to “seriously disturb public order for intimidation or terror,” recalls Jean-François Ricard.
The terrorist qualification had not preserved, in particular, for the racist murder of December 23, 2022 Rue d’Enghien in Paris after having left three dead and four injured among the Kurdish community, which was expressly attacked.
“This qualification choice is part, it must be recognized, the most intense difficulties we can find. We must work from very specific elements, only material, without any prejudice, whatever the severity of the facts,” responds to the former anti -terrorist prosecutor.
While debates about the recognition of ultra-right terrorism are increasing, Jean-François Ricard emphasizes that “the difficulty is to distinguish a simple discussion with the desire to take action.”
This vagueness, fueled by the absence of a constituted organization, unlike the 1970-1980 where the Charles-Martel group operated in particular, hindered the identification of hazardous profiles.
Before Puget-Sur-argens, six homicides have been assigned to extreme right-wing supporters since 2016. Each year, about 50 physical assaults in France are identified as linked to the ultra right.
A constant figure increased since 2019, according to data compiled by Paul frozen in A murderers. In July 2024, 67 people of this movement were imprisoned for terrorism.
France, European exception
According to the report on terrorism from afar in Europe of the University of Oslo, France is an exception in Europe to the extent that the country is one of the few to see violent acts of ultra -right increase in recent years.
“France could evolve in a different direction from that of most other countries in Western Europe,” says the report, which stresses that “the growing political polarization of France has aggravated this violence.”
Add: “If extreme right violence in France remains less frequent than in Germany or in the United Kingdom, its persistence and recent climb indicate a complex relationship between the electoral strategies of the extreme right, the polarization of society and violent mobilization.”
1,400 s Files and heterogeneous profiles
French intelligence services estimate 3,300 the number of active people in this movement, of which 1,400 are trapped, has the congestos of Paul, in his book A murderers.
“Many come from rural environments, they are armed due to their activity”, either hunting or shooting sports (as in the case of Puget-Sur-Argens’ suspect, the editor’s note) explains the Guillaume load, the latter can “be tempted by the passage to the violent act when they give certain speeches.”
The profile of the authors or the alleged perpetrators of the terrorist acts is heterogeneous. The latter can be “very young or fifty, often small graduates, passionate about weapons or explosives,” says Guillaume Burden.
This Thursday, June 5, Christophe B., suspected of the racist attack of Puget-Sur-Argens, was accused and placed in preventive detention. Before his judgment, another judgment on the threat of the ultra right is expected.
16 members of the GroupScule AFO, for the action of the operational forces, arrested in 2018 because suspects of terrorist projects anti-musulm terrorist, they are judged as of Tuesday, June 10.
Source: BFM TV
