A criminal investigation was opened in November for breach of personal data after the publication in September by the far-right site Fdesouche of files listing political figures and activists presented as “Islamo-leftists”, the prosecution confirmed on Wednesday April 27. from Paris.
Some of the people listed, including the journalist Taha Bouhafs, who had revealed the existence of these files in September, but also his lawyer Me Arié Alimi, had announced Tuesday by a press release on Twitter the opening of this investigation.
In this press release, they explain that they filed a complaint on September 21 “for several offenses relating to the illegal processing of personal data contained in this file” and “in the name of a hundred people listed” among “several deputies from La France Insoumise”. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, the investigation was entrusted to the Brigade for the repression of personal crime (BRDP).
A first file, dating from November 2019, called “Islamo-leftists who signed the call for a demonstration against Islamophobia on 10/11/2019” lists the signatories of this call published on Mediapart. They are classified by surname, first name, organization, “position” (type “imam”, “deputies”…) and by category: “Islam, politics, journalism, activism, trade unionism”.
Among the hundreds of politicians and left-wing activists include the LFI deputies Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Eric Coquerel, the journalist from Médiapart Edwy Plenel or the “yellow vest” Jérôme Rodrigues. A second file, dating from 2017, lists collectives and associations helping migrants, with their email addresses and certain telephone numbers.
In September, Pierre Sautarel, a figure on the Fdesouche website, told AFP that there was no “nothing illegal”. “There is nothing, it’s bogus. We just took a list of the signatories of the call to demonstrate against Islamophobia, nothing more. All this data is public”, he added. Asked on Wednesday, he declined to comment.