A long-approved march opposing the spread of Islamic radicalism across Europe was outlawed only hours before it was due to commence this past weekend, under the pretext that police could not guarantee law and order faced with leftist counter-protestors.
Organized by Génération Identitaire (Generation Identity), the French branch of the European “identitarian” movement, the Paris prefecture of police took the unusual step of banning the already authorized march, branding the anti-immigration youth outfit ‘’extreme right’’, and warning of the threat of violence from ‘‘determined’’, ‘’organized’’, ‘’masked’’ and ‘’highly mobile’’ extreme left groups seeking to disrupt the event.
Lawyers for Génération Identitaire failed to over-turn the ban Saturday morning, and organizers described it as a politically motivated decision to silence public resistance to the implantation of Islamism across France. They also pointed to the setting of a worrying precedent; the use of counter protests as an excuse for the state to ban legitimate assemblies.
The prohibition comes at a time when left wing protests, authorized by the prefecture, routinely end up with anarchist and extremist elements damaging property and clashing with police.
Paris police prefect, Michel Delpuech, came in for particular criticism on alternative media for his decision to ban the march. The police chief, appointed to the Paris region by the outgoing socialist administration earlier this year, has reportedly characterized nationalists and traditionalists as ‘’extreme right.’’
Critics have accused Delpuech of remaining silent on profanations against Christian churches whilst last year pledging his full support to the Muslim community when a Lyon mosque was tagged with graffiti following the Islamist terrorist attack at Nice, death toll 84.
Outside the Café Pierrot, meanwhile, in Paris’ 15th arrondissement, near where Saturday’s march was due to commence, a crowd of several dozen Parisians had gathered to support the event, some unaware of the ban, others claiming their presence was the least they could do to register their discontent.
Virginie, a well-heeled former resident explained to the Gateway Pundit that she was disappointed but not surprised to see such a massive police deployment to prevent a democratic gathering.
Such a show of force would have been better served in Mantes-la-Jolie, she explained, referring to the suburb of Paris in recent weeks the scene of rioting by immigrant youth, complete with car burnings and Molotov cocktail attacks on police.
‘’We don’t shoot people, cut throats or plant bombs and yet it’s us – the law-abiding citizens, we that pay for the police and their equipment – that are treated like the terrorists here’’, she added, explaining that she had reluctantly quit Paris after 50 years for a safer town to the west of the city.
A male by-stander, overhearing the conversation, offered that Paris’ northern arrondissements were being filled with recently-arrived foreign populations, subsidized by the French tax-payer. The phenomenon was now being repeated in the city’s more conservative-voting southern arrondissements, deliberately, he theorized, to give the remaining conservative districts to the left.
Heavily armored police soon moved in to disperse the supporters of the banned march, pushing them towards the now closed La Motte – Piquet métro station. Jeers and cries of ‘’collaborators’’ could be heard as police moved into action.
At the same time, across the city, several dozen members of the Génération Identitaire youth movement gathered outside the Bataclan theatre, making a symbolic protest at the concert venue where 90 people were killed in the terrorist attacks claimed by the Islamic State in November 2015. Flares were lit, and slogans chanted before the ‘‘identitarians’’ re-grouped at their premises in the south of the city – which had been attacked by some twenty masked and black-clad leftists the evening before.
Hundreds of Generation Identity members and supporters, most ranging from their late-teens to early twenties, had travelled from across France for the event, with others having come from neighboring countries including Germany, Austria, Italy, and as far as Ireland, England, Norway and Denmark.
The group, which last summer chartered a vessel to fight migrant traffickers on the Mediterranean, have stated that their lawyers are preparing a brief to have the ”illegality” of the prefecture’s decision recognized. Another major event will go ahead in January, sources confirmed to the Gateway Pundit.
Taking refuge from the cold in Le Pierrot, the frustrations of numerous French citizens were summed up by Françoise, discussing the afternoon’s events with a group of friends over coffee and hot chocolate;
‘’We have almost no journalists to speak for us anymore… They [the courts] are tearing down our crosses and outlawing Christmas nativities yet they allow Islamists to pray in the street. Our own people in difficulty are going homeless whilst the illegals that arrive are prioritized and if we open our mouths to complain, to protest peacefully, we’re the ones who get arrested.
The French people will take this until one day they explode!’’
https://www.facebook.com/generationidparis/videos/10156292347138888/
Members of Génération Identitaire outside the Bataclan Theatre, Paris.
Photo: Damien Cowley, Video: RUPTLY
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