The French judiciary charged Rémy Dayer, a well-known activist in the populist extremist circles who believe in conspiracy theories, with forming a terrorist criminal gang.

French judicial sources reported that Remy Dayer formed a gang with two parts, civil and military, and included former police, gendarmerie and army officers.

Judicial sources stated that the gang intended to carry out violent attacks targeting several facilities, such as vaccination centers and poles of the fifth generation networks for mobile phones.

And French media reported - quoting sources familiar with the investigations - that the gang planned to use police shields and explosives to seize the Elysee Palace and other government buildings.

A total of 14 people were arrested in this case, all belonging to the extreme right.

Planning to overthrow the regime

The French newspaper "Le Parisien" revealed an attempt to overthrow the government and President Emmanuel Macron, in an operation known symbolically as "Azure".

The newspaper said - in a report published on Wednesday - that the former deputy of the Democratic Movement Party, Remy Dayer, "was planning a coup against the Elysee with the help of a wide network of police, gendarmerie and army officers, including those still in service."

Dayer, 54, is known as a far-right figure famous for launching conspiracy theories, and was previously expelled from the centrist Democratic Movement Party.

The newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying that Daye's scheme "was ambitious and foolish, and is represented in controlling the Elysee and establishing a new authority from the people," explaining that this "coup" was symbolically chosen as "Operation Azure."

One of Daye's close men told the newspaper from his place of detention: "The secret plan was the last operation, which was to mobilize as many protesters as possible and then overthrow the government and state structures."

The newspaper pointed out that "during the investigations, officers of the Investigation Department discovered that Dayer had formed a (terrorist group) with a wide network of branches throughout the country."

The network consisted of many active and retired police, gendarmerie and army officers, some of whom are outside the country, including a retired lieutenant colonel named Christoph M.

The 63-year-old, holder of the French Order of Merit, works as the secretary of the movement's military wing, and investigators have identified at least 36 captains, each of whom is responsible for his region.

And on October 19, Dayer - who has been imprisoned for months on charges of planning the kidnapping of a girl - was placed in pretrial detention on suspicion of "planning coup operations and other acts of violence."

In this context, the French judicial authorities indicted 12 people in connection with the case of the coup plot.

But a number of other investigations carried out by the authorities also point to Dayer's connection to other movements, including the "neo-Nazis" who were planning an attack on a Masonic lodge in the Alsace region, northeastern France.

For its part, the French BFM network reported that former soldiers had ordered the training of recruits to carry out the attack plan on the Elysee Palace, the official residence of President Macron.

The network indicated that the attackers planned to occupy Parliament later before taking control of a radio or television station through which they broadcast their propaganda, in the context of implementing their coup plan against the government.

It is noteworthy that Dayer was accused of kidnapping an 8-year-old girl at the request of her mother in eastern France last April, but she was found unharmed with her mother in Switzerland 5 days after she was taken from her grandmother's house.

The French authorities then issued an international arrest warrant against him during his stay with his family in Malaysia on the background of the "Azure operation and accusing him of conspiracy and terrorism", and accordingly the Malaysian authorities deported him under the pretext that his visa had expired, according to media reports.

And the French police arrested him, Dayer, upon his return to the country last June, while his lawyer denies all the accusations against his client and says that he is a "political prisoner".