Interpellation of the "White Zorro", ex-gendarme and figure of the conspiratorial milieu

An ex-gendarme, member of the conspiracy sphere wanted for 9 months in particular for appealing to the disobedience of soldiers, was arrested Friday in Sorbiers, in the Loire, near Saint-Etienne.

"Christian, alias 'Stan' Maillaud, was arrested without resistance at 6 am in Sorbiers by the research section of Clermont-Ferrand, supported by the gendarmes of the Loire where he was placed in police custody as part of the execution of an arrest warrant, "Cusset public prosecutor Eric Neveu told AFP, confirming information from BFMTV.

Already convicted of attempted child abduction

This former parachutist and former gendarme had been wanted since November. He had just come out of prison after a conviction in a case of attempted abduction of children allegedly victims of pedophilia, said the same source. At the end of a preliminary investigation, a judicial investigation was opened last year against him by an examining magistrate of the Allier for "criminal association, violation of the legislation on weapons, forgery and use of false, acts of intimidation on elected officials and persons holding public authority and call for disobedience by the military ".

Presented as "one of the last conspiratorial leaders sought by justice from the movement of the National Transitional Council of France, chaired by Eric-Régis Fiorile", another figure of the movement, Christian Maillaud is accused of having participated in a call for a uprising against the government.

Denouncing "impostors and traitors to the Nation", and "pedo-criminal and satanic networks", he is notably accused of having sent letters inviting elected officials, soldiers or magistrates to join the "National Transitional Council" based in the Allier, under penalty of "going before a military-popular court", says a judicial source.

Nicknamed the "White Zorro" by his followers

At the head of a small group of activists adhering to various conspiracy theories and in charge of the police of the "National Transitional Council", the 50-year-old was notably at the initiative of the "Chocolate Revolution", which planned to '' enlist the military and police after offering them boxes of chocolate. Nicknamed "Stan" or the "White Zorro" by his followers on the internet, Christian Maillaud takes up in videos the theories of the Qanon conspiracy movement, born in the United States and which is gaining ground in France.

In 2018, then on the run with his German partner, he was sentenced by the court in Saintes, Charente-Maritime, to five years in prison for helping a woman who planned to take her children from their father, whom she accused of pedophilia. Arrested in Venezuela at the end of 2019, he was retried for these facts in January 2020 and sentenced to 4 years, after having already been sentenced in 2009 for having removed a child he claimed to be in danger. For his part, Eric-Régis Fiorile was to be tried in immediate appearance at the end of December for possession of a weapon in Evry, but the court preferred that the investigation continue before ruling.