Nupes wants commission of inquiry to ‘monitor’ far-right

The left-wing coalition Nupes (LFI, PS, PCF, EELV) on Monday asks for the creation of a commission of inquiry in the National Assembly to “fight against extreme right-wing groups in France.” This decision was made in the context of “aggravation of violence in society”.

The resolution proposal, introduced by Insoumis MP Thomas Portes and signed by 100 Nupes colleagues, points to the emergence of numerous “identical and neo-Nazi” small groups in the country. “Our duty today is to put them under surveillance, to see who they are, to identify them in order to avoid tragedies,” the parliamentarian said due to the violence of these groups.

We need to trace “their funding networks,” he added, also given that these “small groups have ties to parties, both RN and Reconquest.” Their development “is part of a context of racism and increased violence in society,” he said, referring in particular to the degradation of Muslim places of worship. MP Saint-Saint-Denis believes that the government is “responsible” for the situation, citing in particular the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who he says uses “elements of RN language” on immigration.

Several plans of violent action thwarted

According to Thomas Portes, at the Assembly, the LFI created an internal “working group” to oversee the parliamentary activities and positions of Marine Le Pen’s group. The LFI deputies do not plan at this stage to use their “borrowing rights” on this commission of inquiry (the possibility for each group to create one commission of inquiry per year), which makes its creation hypothetical.

In recent years, several violent plans by small far-right groups directed against political figures have been thwarted. Suspected members of the Barjols, a group close to the individual, were indicted between 2018 and 2022 on suspicion of planning the 2018 attack on Emmanuel Macron. Members of the “Honneur et Action” group were interrogated in 2021. and 2022 for a “criminal terrorist association”.

In October, the criminal court of Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhone) sentenced members of the Génération identitaire to up to one year in prison for a violent sabotage operation at the Marseille headquarters of SOS Méditerranée, an aid organization for migrants.