Far-Right Hate Group ‘Génération Identitaire’ Banned in France

On Wednesday, France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced that the far-right group Generation Identity (Génération Identitaire) has been banned for “inciting hate, violence and discrimination”. After this decision had been agreed during a cabinet meeting, Darmanin tweeted the text of the Presidential Decree, explaining that the group can be regarded “as having the character of a private militia” due to its “militarised form and organisation”.

Established in France in 2012, after the dissolution of its predecessor ‘Bloc Identitaire’, this organisation stands out among far-right parties, which tend to promote one country’s nationalism, by claiming to protect European civilisation as a whole. Generation Identity has been promoting a very specific European identity, defined through Christianity and whiteness, against the threat posed by what they see as migration-led ‘Islamisation of Europe’ – the key premise of the debunked Great Replacement conspiracy theory. 

This group’s dissolution is the result of sustained activism against Generation Identity by several civil society organisations, including Licra, Get the Trolls Out! partner in France. 

In the years since Génération Identitaire’s establishment in 2012, LICRA have responded to the group’s anti-Muslim stunts by making multiple calls for its dissolution under Article 212-1 of the country’s Internal Security Code.  

‘Mission Pyrenees’ – the latest in a series of anti-Muslim actions undertaken by the hate group – saw its agitators form paramilitary units to patrol the Pyrenees border between France and Spain for persons of "Afro-Maghreban" descent and other "suspect profiles”.

After this anti-migrant action of border control, French C8 news channel irresponsibly decided to platform the far-right White Pride group, letting its spokesperson Thaïs D'Escufon freely advocate and praise the group’s latest action on screens across the nation. 

“Génération Identitaire takes it on themselves to act like ‘border control.’ Their dissolution is urgent and imperative. The Republican order must be maintained by public forces, not by far-right militias”, reacted Licra on Twitter.

While criticising C8 for giving airtime to Generation Identity, Licra also explained that ‘Mission Pyrenees’ was an inherently anti-Muslim operation that misrepresented all “migrants” as “Islamists” by intentionally conflating the two terms.

The official decree dissolving the group made markedly similar points: “This association and some of its activists must be regarded as upholding a discourse of hate, encouraging discrimination or violence against individuals because of their origin, race and religion”. 

Moreover, French authorities underlined that the group had to be liquidated because it constituted “a private militia” in its “militarised form and organisation”.

Prior to the group’s dissolution, its social media accounts have already been removed by almost all the main networks - Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, among them. 

Unfortunately, the Twitter account belonging to Generation Identity’s former leader, far-right agitator Damien Rieu was not affected. Verified by Twitter and boasting 91,000 followers, Rieu’s account also appears to have survived the official banning of the group he once led. 

This casts serious doubts on Twitter’s stated commitment “to combating abuse motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance, particularly abuse that seeks to silence the voices of those who have been historically marginalized.” 

In fact, groups promoting anti-Muslim narratives that are remarkably similar to the hateful ideology of Generation Identity continue to thrive on French Twitter.

One example is Némésis – a self-described “feminist collective” with nearly twenty thousand followers. From this account, they frequently warn about the impending “Islamisation” of France and Europe, claiming that Muslims pose an existential threat to European values – the central refrain of the debunked ‘Great Replacement’ myth, which was embraced by Generation Identity.

In another similarity to the banned group, Némésis often fuels hatred against Muslims in Europe by targeting women who wear the veil. One their recent tweets marked World Hijab Day by posting a video of a row of women in burqas, with the sensationalist comment – “As identity feminists, we wanted to show to the French the face of France in 50 years if the Islamists and their accomplices win.”

We have to wonder, why is Twitter’s approach to anti-Muslim hate so patchy?