Avowed identity series#

The group emerged from the ashes of a previous far-right French group, the Radical Unit ( Unité Radicale) – which was shut down in 2002 after one of its members tried to assassinate then-president Jacques Chirac. Generation Identity are also keen to ensure that their members are relatively well-dressed for the cameras – notably in comparison to the archetypal far-right skinheads.” They also strategically place female members – who are in the minority – at the front of their rallies. The organisation is especially good at using filming techniques as a PR tool, French weekly paper Le Journal de Dimanche observed: “At their events they film in such a way as to portray its members as more numerous than they really are. Generation Identity’s stunts were effective in capturing public attention, wrote Stéphane François, an expert on the far-right at the École Pratique des Hauts Études in Paris, on political analysis website The Conversation: “Their goal is to get people to talk about them – and they’ve done that by inviting journalists to cover their events, as well as getting publicity through their website.”

Three members were sentenced to six months in prison for the Alpine stunt in August 2019 – specifically for masquerading as police officers. This operation cost around 10 percent of Generation Identity’s budget – estimated at around €300,000 and mainly composed of donations from the group’s members and supporters. The activists were dressed in the same blue jacket, which made them look like police officers and fuelled the impression that they were usurping the role of the French state. About a hundred people were involved in the operation, setting up plastic fences, unveiling a giant banner and using two helicopters to control the border. Then-president François Hollande’s government considered shutting down Generation Identity in response to this, but did not do so.Ī group persisted with shock tactics over the following years – including blocking the road linking the “Calais jungle” migrant camp to the city centre in 2016 and by infiltrating one of its members into the NGO SOS Méditerranée, which helps migrants in danger of death at sea, in 2018.īut Generation Identity’s biggest publicity stunt was when it launched a vast operation in the Alps along the Italian border, an open frontier thanks to the EU’s Schengen agreement – and a major crossing point for migrants. A group of young people filmed close-up told the camera they were the generation that had seen an “ethnic divide” and a “bankrupt” experiment in “living together” that included “imposed miscegenation”.Ī month later, they engaged in direct action for the first time by occupying the roof of a mosque under construction in the central French city of Poitiers, using the building the display anti-immigrant banners. The organisation first grabbed French headlines in 2012 with an online video titled “A declaration of war”.

Avowed identity series#

He had already raised the possibility of dissolving the far-right group in late January when it deployed around thirty activists on the Spanish border, with cars bearing the message “Defend Europe” and the use of drones to police the frontier – the latest in a series of stunts Generation Identity has used to attract the French public’s attention. The group appears to have contravened a French law banning “incitement to discriminate against a person or group because of their origin”, Darmanin said. On February 13, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced that he had triggered procedures to close down Generation Identity ( Génération Identitaire) in response to a series of anti-migrant actions. The National Assembly approved on February 16 a bill to fight Islamist extremism and separatism in an attempt to tackle the root causes of jihadist violence – in response to a wave of attacks that has seen more than 250 people murdered since 2015.īut Macron’s centrist government is also worried about the far-right – especially seeing as a poll by magazine L’Express and daily Le Parisien in January put populist National Rally leader Marine Le Pen at 48 percent compared to 52 percent for Macron in the 2022 presidential election race.