The French government told parliamentarians this week that it will take steps to ban one of the leading far-left Antifa groups in the country amid allegations of the use of violence against political opponents.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on Tuesday that “dissolution” proceedings to proscribe the Lyon-based La Jeune Garde Antifasciste (The Young Anti-Fascist Guard) have begun.
“This will be an opportunity for the Young Guard to assert their rights, and it is an opportunity for us to bring, I hope to an end, the dissolution,” Retailleau said, according to Le Figaro.
The group was founded in 2018 in response to the increased presence of far-right street activism, the far-left group claimed.
The Antifa cell has been active in numerous street protests, including the widespread demonstrations in 2023 against the move by the Macron administration to raise the state pension age without the approval of the National Assembly.
Raphaël Arnault, a founder and the official spokesman of the Antifa group, who was controversially elected to the National Assembly last year for the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party, claimed that the move from the government is an attempt to derail leftist street activism in the wake of protests against “Islamophobia” following the killing of a Muslim man allegedly by a Bosnian-heritage man last week.
He said that the Young Guard “is an indispensable anti-fascist tool in this period, the far-right has understood this well and is trying to destroy us.”
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— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 8, 2024
Arnault has previously been accused of being directly involved in alleged street violence by the Antifa cell, including an assault against a right-wing activist, who claimed that Arnault and another Antifa member beat him with a helmet.
Reports have also claimed that Arnault’s involvement in radical leftist politics was so extreme that the internal French intelligence services opened an “S” file on him.
This would have designated him as a potential national security threat and thus landed him on the same watch list as suspected terrorists.
Despite this, the far-left LFI party backed his candidacy, even after it was reported that Arnault was on the national security watch list, and he now represents the 1st constituency of Vaucluse in the French parliament.
LFI leader and former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon was critical of the attempt to ban the Antifa collective.
“Bruno Retailleau announces the dissolution of the anti-fascist organisation La Jeune Garde. On what grounds? Nobody will know. These young people hate fascism. I agree with them. Well done, keep going! Is the Minister of the Interior trying to scare us? You’ll never get there!” the far-left leader said.
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— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 29, 2024
