The Utopia 56 association, based in Lorient, is the target of three complaints filed recently for disseminating false information to the authorities which allegedly provoked “unnecessary emergency intervention”, according to Le Monde and Le Figaro. Three criminal investigations, carried out by the public prosecutors of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais), but also Rennes, are underway. Three employees and volunteers of the association have received summons to be interviewed soon.
The complaint from Saint-Omer concerns a publication on April 2024. The prefect of Pas-de-Calais responded that a brawl had broken out between 80 migrants and the police. And that, out of spite, the migrants had set the boat on fire.
“We do our job”
In Boulogne-sur-Mer, there are reports from the association of telephone calls for help without valid reason to the Cross. The former maritime prefect of the Channel and the North Sea had even mentioned false starts, false emergencies, “followed by sending help playing into the hands of the smugglers”.
In Rennes, finally, a member of Utopia 56 is accused of having wrongly alerted the emergency services on August 4, in order to warn them that migrants were being subjected to violence at the hands of the police and that a child was in danger.
Contacted by Le Figaro, Yann Manzi, co-founder of Utopia 56, declared having read of the lawsuits: “We are doing our job. On the coast, we help people there.”
Yann Manzi is a former campsite manager at Vieilles Charrues. He created Utopia 56, with his son, Gaël, in 2015. The association is mainly active in the North and in the Paris region. It claims 18,000 members and 200 active volunteers on French territory.
