Demonstration by activists of Identity Generations. - PHILIPPE LOPEZ / AFP

  • Meeting within the Defense and Equality Collective, lawyers from the Lyon bar wrote to the officials and launched a petition.
  • They ask them to put an end to the identity militias.
  • Identity generation members have announced that they regularly plan patrols, called "city security operations".

"No to the militias, in Lyon as elsewhere". Several lawyers of the Lyon bar, composing the Defense and Equality Collective, launched a petition to denounce the “operations to secure the city and its transport” carried out a few days earlier by the activists of Génération Identitaire. They also sent a letter to the prefect of the Rhône and the mayor of Lyon Gérard Collomb. A “citizen formal notice” to force them to “act” by taking the appropriate measures to put an end to these interventions. "It is their responsibility," say these men and women of the law in unison.

On May 28, activists, dressed in the same blue tank top, roamed the city streets and the subway trains to carry out, in their own words, "a security tour", announcing in a word that they were going substitute for the police or security agents. The watchword was launched: "protect the people" and "never back down" in the face of "scum". In reality, the communication operation boiled down to the distribution of leaflets and the display of provocative signs. Which did not trigger any reaction from the authorities.

📢 Tour to secure public transport and downtown Lyon on May 28, 2020.

🛡 Facing the scum, we can not back down! # COVID19 #Lyon pic.twitter.com/DyhEFKaLwB

- Generation ID Lyon (@GIdLyon) May 30, 2020

"They cannot dispose of the city as they want"

The identities have promised to repeat the operation on a regular basis. And the defense and equality collective is worried about it. “We know who they are. We know the underlying ideology. No one is fooled. We cannot say that the ideas advocated encourage appeasement and their massive presence is provocative, bounces Zerrin. This type of action, coming from a self-proclaimed private militia, constitutes a danger for citizens and democracy ”.

“They think they have the right to intervene with legitimacy, but the law does not allow them to do so. These groups do not have to assign themselves the missions and prerogatives of general interest relating to professions, missions and regulated functions. Even less can they dispose of the city as they want, ”she says again.

An alert before hardening the tone?

In the meantime, the collective wishes to alert “kindly” to the dangers and risks of disturbing public order that would be engendered by new patrols. But he does not rule out hardening the tone. "We reserve the right to put the prefect and the mayor of Lyon on notice and to seize the administrative court, if they do not react," says Zerrin Bataray. We also do not rule out making a complaint also against Génération Identitaire. This group or its members have been condemned on several occasions for their acts of the same nature ”.

On August 29, three members of Generation Identity received 6 months in prison for carrying out an anti-migrant action on the French-Italian border. Contacted by 20 Minutes , the Rhône prefecture did not wish to comment and the city of Lyon did not provide an answer.

Marseille

VIDEO. "You are going to set a precedent", the thorny trial of Génération Identitaire's anti-migrant operation

Politics

The RN supports condemned Generation Identity executives

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