The identity bar la Citadelle, in Lille.

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M.Libert / 20 Minutes

  • The Generation Identity group was dissolved on Wednesday in the Council of Ministers.

  • The mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, welcomes this decision and wishes consequences in his city.

  • To the prefect, the elected representative reiterated her request for the closure of the Citadel, a private "house of identity".

This Wednesday, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced that the far-right association Génération Identitaire had been dissolved in the Council of Ministers.

In the process, the mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, renewed his request to the prefect to close the bar la Citadelle, “house of Identity” installed in the city center.

"We are delighted with such a decision, the consequences of which must be drawn in Lille," wrote Martine Aubry in a press release published on Wednesday evening.

For the elected socialist, the "consequences in Lille" are, in the first place, "administratively close '' The Citadel ''", she assures.

Several unsuccessful requests for closure

This bar is in fact a private club open to members of the eponymous association.

It opened in Lille in September 2016, a stone's throw from the Opera, without however having a storefront.

At the time already, Martine Aubry had explained that she was going to be "very attentive" to the possible problems that the structure "could generate" in terms of disturbances to public order.

Nothing had worked, no loophole had been found to justify closing the place.

The town hall had again tried its luck with the representative of the State after the broadcast of an Al-Jazeera documentary shot in part at the Citadel.

"I then seized the Prefect to ask him that we find the appropriate measures to put an end to the actions of these individuals and obtain the closure of the Citadel," wrote the mayor of Lille.

In vain.

For Martine Aubry, the dissolution of Génération identitaire, it is therefore the occasion that makes the thief.

Except that it might not be that simple.

If the Citadel association claims to be a “house of identity” and its members form an “identity and patriot activist community”, the label Generation Identity no longer appears anywhere.

If Aurélien Verhassel, president of the association, had indeed belonged to this movement, this is no longer the case today.

“The Citadel organization is an independent structure […] As for Aurélien Verhassel, he is no longer a member of Génération Identitaire and we no longer have contact with him,” the movement declared in December 2018.

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  • Far right

  • Identity generation

  • Lille