The GUD (Union Defense Group) and three other ultra-right structures based in Lyon were dissolved on Wednesday in the Council of Ministers, announced government spokesperson Prisca Thévenot, a few days before the first round of the legislative elections.
Several small ultra-right groups, including the GUD (Union Defense Group), active in Paris, and the Remparts, based in Lyon, were dissolved on Wednesday in the Council of Ministers, a few days before the first round of the legislative elections. An Islamist association, “Jonas Paris”, was also dissolved on Wednesday. “We have just dissolved ultra-right associations, including the GUD, and radical Islamists,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin wrote on X.
“Hate from the extremes must be fought by the Republic,” he added. The GUD is an ultra-right student union created in the 1970s and recently reactivated. The three dissolved Lyon structures are Les Remparts, presented as a “de facto group”, as well as two associations, La Traboule and Top Sport Rhône, which manage the bar and the sports hall where its members meet in Old Lyon.
“Nearly 40 members”
Never dissolved, but dormant since 2017, the GUD announced its return at the end of 2022. Gérald Darmanin indicated last week that he was going to propose to Emmanuel Macron the dissolution of the GUD, which he had accused of being “friends” of “people” of the National Rally. The GUD has “nearly 40 members”, “most of which” come from another small group, the Zouaves Paris, dissolved in January 2022, according to the dissolution decree.
The small group in return denounced a dissolution on “false grounds” and warned that it would continue the “struggle”. This group “provokes” “violent actions against people”, according to the decree, which notably mentions the attack on a student procession in Paris in March 2023, as well as the legal conviction of one of its members for a homophobic attack in June 2024.
On June 12, four ultra-right activists were sentenced for their participation in a homophobic attack in Paris while they were “celebrating” the RN’s victory in the European elections. Among the convicted activists, Gabriel Lousteau, 23, a figure in the GUD and son of Axel Lousteau, himself a former activist in this organization, former RN elected official and formerly close to Marine Le Pen.
Provocations to violence “followed by effect”
Another former “gudard”, known for violence, Loïk Le Priol, who is the main suspect in the murder in March 2022 of former Argentine rugby international Federico Martin Aramburu. The group “also published targeted messages against people or members of groups presented as ‘antifa’ to implicitly incite to commit violence against them”, continues the decree, citing as an example the publication on X of the photo and named after a journalist Release.
As for Les Remparts, built on the ashes of Génération Identitaire, dissolved in 2021, it holds a “discourse provoking hatred, discrimination and violence against foreigners”, by “developing a discourse focused on the defense of race and the incompatibility between Islam and Western civilization”, according to the decree. “Far from being limited to words and training, the group’s provocations to violence have been followed by action”, continues the decree, which mentions in particular the attack on a Lyon association bar where a conference on Palestine was taking place in November 2023.
“The government has finally shown responsibility”
The group announced that it would go to the Council of State to contest its dissolution. “We are not going to let ourselves face this arbitrary decision,” Antoine Durand, spokesperson for the Remparts, told AFP. The capital of Gaul is one of the strongholds of the ultra-right movement and has between 300 and 400 activists, according to local authorities. “The government has finally shown responsibility, it was urgent to act for the safety of Lyonnaises,” Grégory Doucet, EELV mayor of Lyon, told AFP. “Our duty is to promote the humanism so dear to our city and our country.”
Several small ultra-right groups have been dissolved in recent months by the government. The latest, the Lille association La Citadelle, which was prohibited from organizing an evening entitled “Let them return to Africa” in February 2023, was dissolved in February by the Council of Ministers.
