- Among the nineteen defendants referred to the Bobigny Criminal Court, only six of them were present at the hearing.
- Students or active, these young men and women had entered in March 2019 on the roof of the CAF of Seine-Saint-Denis to deploy a xenophobic banner.
- The prosecution has requested suspended sentences ranging from three to eight months.
"Money for the French, not for foreigners!" This is the xenophobic phrase, signed by the far-right association Génération identitaire, and deployed on March 29, 2019 on the facade of the Family Allowance Fund (CAF) in Seine-Saint-Denis. That day, nineteen identity activists were arrested and placed in police custody. A year later, six of the nineteen referred to the Bobigny criminal court made the trip. Tried this Thursday before the 16th chamber, they face a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a 45,000 euro fine.
At the helm, the five young men and a young woman aged 34 to 19 all "assumed" this "punch" action massively relayed at the time on social networks. Sacked for "obstructing freedom of work", none, however, claimed their participation in the organization of this action. None were also able to affirm who, among the activists present that day, had fixed cardboard signs on the entrance gate of the building indicating "CAF occupied." No admittance ".
Neither "degradations" nor "violence"
If the court was seized this Thursday, it was not to judge the words affixed on the banner of the small group. But to assess to what extent the intrusion of activists on the roof of the CAF of Seine-Saint-Denis could prevent the employees of this public service from working. To understand how the action took place, the president relied on the story of the police officers who intervened on March 29, 2019. Arrived at 7 am in the vicinity of the building located in Bobigny, the members of Generation Identity borrowed a emergency staircase accessible at the rear of the establishment.
Tomorrow will open the trial of the occupation of the CAF of #Bobigny. We asked that social assistance be reserved for the French.
Either way, we will always remain committed to defending our people and our identity. # OccupCAF93 pic.twitter.com/Qavu0a9N8V
Equipped with a 4-meter high ladder to access the roof, the activists deployed their banner, lit smoke bombs and immortalized the action to relay it on the Internet. "No degradation or violence was observed on the spot," said the president, however. CAF administrative staff were evacuated from the building "for security reasons" before the intervention of the police called to dislodge the young militants. However, in this procedure, there was no evidence to show that the members of the small group had entered the premises.
A "peaceful" occupation
Aware of the legal issue, the six activists present all used the same defense arguments. Several have thus argued “the group effect”. "You were aware that this staircase, when you take it, you have no right to do it?" Asked the representative of the public prosecutor. "No, I wasn't really aware of it, I was just following, I didn't ask myself any questions," replies Emilie-Jeanne, a 21-year-old student, the only woman among the defendants present at the hearing. The oldest of them, employed at the town hall of Beaucaire in the Gard abounds: “No, we neither tried nor attempted to go into the premises, we just used a staircase with free access (…) it was not closed, so we don't know where the ban begins. "
As for the panels specifying on the entrance gate of the building: "Do not enter, CAF occupied", it is impossible to know who is behind this initiative. Ditto on the organization of the action in itself. "I have not heard of a WhatsApp group, it was word of mouth," says an activist, autoentrepreneur in communication installed in the south of France. A member of the very active movement on Twitter, Johan S., 29, is asked about the use of the word "occupation" to relay the action on social networks. “We say that 'CAF is busy'. But when we look at the details of the press releases, we clearly state that we are peacefully occupying the roof of CAF, ”he says.
Eight to three months suspended prison
Reluctant and unsophisticated about the contours of this operation, the defendants willingly let their lawyer, Pierre-Vincent Lambert, thwart the requisitions of the prosecution. As the magistrate of the public prosecutor recalled, for the obstruction to be recognized, it must be committed either with violence or destruction or by "assault". "Here, the assault comes down to this," pleaded the lawyer from Nice, brandishing one of the boxes hanging on the CAF grid. "You don't have to be a Goldorak to pick up these signs (...) no employee has filed a complaint, none is present here in the room, none has been prevented from working", launched the lawyer before pleading relaxation for all of its customers.
A version disputed by the prosecutor Aurélie Lebreton, who requested sentences ranging from 8 to 3 months in prison suspended sentence against the young militants. In the preamble, she wished to recall that several of them were also dismissed in another procedure after a first intrusion organized in 2018 in Marseille at the premises of the SOS Mediterranean association. Describing the group as a "hard core", she castigated the casualness of the thirteen absent defendants, the "absence of regret" of the six present and their "false naivety" on the nature of the messages displayed at the entrance of the building and judged " authoritarian ”by the magistrate. And can we not reasonably think that the employees had a fear of entering their offices with 19 individuals hostile to their activity who light smoke bombs on the roof of the building? A question to which the court will answer this Friday, March 13, the deliberation will be given at 1 p.m.
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Bobigny: Génération Identitaire deploys a xenophobic banner on the CAF of Seine-Saint-Denis
- Far right
- Justice
- Paris
- Identities
- Allowances
- Family allowances
- Identity generation