The pro-migrant collective, which regularly challenges the state, is suspected of having disseminated false information to the authorities to provoke “useless emergency intervention”.
“Utopia 56 is a collective that pushes for republican disorder”confided a few years ago an experienced police officer to Figaro . Today, the pro-migrant association is the target of several criminal investigations, carried out by the public prosecutor's office of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Rennes and Saint-Omer, we learned this Friday, November 29, confirming information of Monde .
Near the Figarothe Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor's office confirmed having opened a criminal investigation involving members of the association, “on facts qualified as communication or disclosure of false information with the aim of making people believe in a disaster likely to cause unnecessary emergency intervention”. In question, two reports received by the public prosecutor and issued in July 2023 and September 2023 by the maritime prefect of the Channel and the North Sea, who denounced at the time several telephone calls from the association.
During a press conference last February, the former maritime prefect, Marc Véran, had already mentioned “reports” and denounced «associations» who do “the smugglers game”by contacting the Regional Operational Surveillance and Rescue Center (Cross) to warn them of “false starts” or from “false emergencies”. “We are obliged to send help where there is nothing at all,” he assured. It fools the security forces.”
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Utopia 56, the pro-migrant association that challenges the State
“The game of smugglers”
The public prosecutor's offices of Rennes and Saint-Omer have also opened investigations against Utopia 56. That of Rennes targets the false information of a volunteer, who allegedly called the emergency services on the night of August 4 to warn them that migrants were suffering violence from police officers, and that a child was in danger.
As for that of the Saint-Omer public prosecutor's office, opened for defamation, it would target a publication on X of Utopia 56, which affirmed last April that “police officers (had) set fire to a boat of exiled people who were trying to reach the United Kingdom”. The prefect of Pas-de-Calais responded to the tweet, writing: “That’s not true. On the night of April 7 to 8, a brawl involving 80 migrants took place at Oye Plage at the time of the boarding organized by the smugglers (…) These people violently attacked the gendarmes by throwing projectiles. Out of spite, they then set fire to their own boat.”
This is not the first time that the Pas-de-Calais prefecture has publicly contradicted Utopia 56 on social networks. Already in May 2023, the institution's account explained that the gassing of 50 people on a beach in Pas-de-Calais, as reported by the association, was «faux». “Here is the truth of the facts from those who were really there”had scathed the prefecture.
“Let’s wait for justice to do its job”
Joined by Le Figaro, Yann Manzi, founder of the association, declares having become aware of these criminal proceedings. “Let’s wait for justice to do its job. (The investigations concern) calls for help which supposedly did not succeed”he assures. “We do our job on the coast, we help the people there”he also affirms.
Created after the broadcast of images of the death of little Aylan in 2015, Utopia 56 now has some 18,000 “members” and mobilizes “200 volunteers every day and every night”, she explains on her site. Officially, the collective organizes collections and distributions of food or clothing, gives French lessons, etc.
But according to an intelligence note cited by Valeurs Actuelles in 2021, the association would display a “proximity with the anti-establishment circles of the ultra-left”, and some of its members could have “links with smugglers”. “Offensive anti-system rhetoric is maintained by power struggles in order to stigmatize the police and call into question the authority of the State,” the note would affirm.
The association has indeed filed complaints against the authorities on several occasions, notably last February for “manslaughter” et “failure to render aid” against the director of Cross Gris-Nez, in Pas-de-Calais, after the death of four people who were trying to reach England on December 14, 2022. Their inflatable boat, which transported dozens of people, had shipwrecked. The association claims to have warned the authorities in vain.
