Lists of names of left-wing politicians, lawyers, journalists. Death threats, calls to commit ratonnades, calls for murder. Endless insults aimed at foreigners – especially North Africans – Muslims, Jews, LGBT people. The thread of the encrypted messaging service Telegram FR Deter (for "determined French") gathered until its closure on Monday, April 3, more than 7,300 subscribers across the France.

Revealed Sunday, April 2 by the Twitter account Tajmaât, which presents itself as a "collaborative platform for North Africans", FR Deter was reported the next day to Telegram, on the instruction of the Minister of the Interior, via the platform for reporting illegal content and online behavior Pharos of the Ministry of the Interior. Gérald Darmanin also asked "the services to work on the judicial follow-up to be given, in connection with the judicial authority".

The neo-Nazi group "#FRDETER" is a group created to bring together identitarians from all over the France.

Composed of departmental subgroups, moderators are responsible for monitoring and recruiting the most active people, in order to achieve punch actions. pic.twitter.com/GZy8byNWuV

— Tajmaat (@Tajmaat_Service) April 2, 2023

FR Deter is part of a nebula of Telegram groups, under surveillance since "late 2022", which "have several hundred accounts", detailed to AFP a police source. Among its users, "some profiles were already known to the intelligence services," the source added. Others "claim the status of military or police officers, but this remains to be demonstrated because many of these accounts have not yet been identified".

According to the same source, these loops were "first formed to serve as platforms for the exchange of identity ideas, to allow sympathizers of these ideologies to meet by region". "It was then that more violent and extremist profiles appeared on these loops, sometimes arousing the disapproval of former members."

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This revelation and the concerns it raises sounds like a reminder: contrary to the speech repeated in recent weeks by the government on the threats of the ultra-left, ecoterrorism and intellectual terrorism, the terrorist threat from the far right does not benefit from the same blacklisting.

"Many Western democracies consider that the threat of ultra-right, supremacist, accelerationist, is today the main threat they face. And we all remember the tragedies that these ideologies have generated in Christchurch, Buffalo, Ottawa, Hanau, Bratislava and so many other cities. The France, like all democracies, is exposed to this same threat, the prevention of which actively mobilizes the intelligence services," Nicolas Lerner, director general of Internal Security, explained on February 16, in an interview with L'Émile, the magazine of former students of Sciences-Po.

'The far right is trying to recruit into the armed forces'

However, when the deputy Europe Ecology-The Greens Aurélien Taché presented a bill a week earlier, asking the government for an exhaustive inventory of the terrorist threat of the extreme right, few deputies of the presidential majority were in favor. Seeing his text distorted in committee, the ecologist MEP finally preferred to withdraw it.

🏛️ Ultra-left activism is equated with far-right terrorism, as when @EmmanuelMacron compared the social movement to the invasion of the Capitol.

⛔️ On behalf of the Group, I reject such a relativisation of the risk, @EcologistesAN I withdraw this text! pic.twitter.com/lkrSz39Sk5

— Aurélien Taché (@Aurelientache) March 29, 2023

His initiative, however, led to a debate on the fight against far-right terrorism, Monday, April 3, at the National Assembly, which gave rise to the hearing of the Minister of Overseas Jean-François Carenco – his minister in charge, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, having declined the invitation.

"Yes it's true, far-right violence is resurfacing. (...) These ideologies are not dead, they even seem particularly alive on our territory," the minister admitted.

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Thus, in 2021, France accounted for 45% of arrests in Europe concerning cases related to far-right terrorism, according to the latest Europol report. This represents a total of 29 arrests – out of 64 in Europe – and a strong increase in France since 7 people were arrested for the same reasons in 2019, and five in 2020.

The Ministry of the Interior is working, said Jean-François Carenco, who recalled that eleven decrees of dissolution of associations had been taken in recent years, mentioning Generation Identity and Alvarium in 2021, the Zouaves of Paris in 2022 or Bordeaux nationalist in 2023. In total, the ultra-right has about 3,000 activists, more than 1,300 of whom are on file S, according to the minister's data.

Debate on the fight against far-right terrorism: Unprecedented:

🚨A minister recognizes for the first time in the National Assembly, the infiltration of the French army and police by neo-Nazi groups! pic.twitter.com/yev3VYUQW4

— Aurélien Taché (@Aurelientache) April 3, 2023

They include members of the security forces and the army. Jean-François Carenco acknowledged the problem and even insisted on the fact that it was in his opinion "the first time that before this Assembly, a minister acknowledges the existence of this phenomenon and recognizes that it is taken into account".

"The far right is trying to recruit into the armed security forces," the minister continued. They "have skills related to weapons in particular that are sought after by the far-right movement that strives either to actively recruit among these professions, or to integrate them into their system. The exercise of these professions therefore raises major issues."

"Overton's window has moved"

For sociologist and far-right specialist Erwan Lecœur, also interviewed during the debate, the France "faces people who consider that they have to prepare a form of ethnic civil war and that accelerationism [theory that intends to promote chaos to precipitate a race war, Editor's note] consists in striking first".

According to him, the French secret services underestimated the far-right threat from the 2000s and the split of the National Front, focusing more on the jihadist threat. A mistake: in twenty years, society has evolved, and it has become much easier to get its message across and recruit through the Internet and social networks, says the researcher.

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In addition, the ideas of the extreme right have gradually become established in the public debate, with the complicity of right-wing and central politicians who have taken them up for electoral purposes.

"There is an imagination and a social atmosphere that allows and endorses ideas that were once outside the Overton window [which is permissible to say in a society, Editor's note]. That window has moved. There are terms that were created by small groups that are now considered normal. This allows lone wolves to feel pushed to act, which was not the case 20 years ago," said Erwan Lecœur.

The National Assembly is also the perfect illustration of the wave of far-right ideas in French society. The debate around ultra-right groups took place under the eye of representatives of the parliamentary far right. In addition to the questions asked by the deputies of the Nupes, Erwan Lecœur had to answer those of three deputies of the National Rally. The debates were led that day by the vice-president of the extreme right Hélène Laporte.

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