the parallel world of “sovereign beings”, the conspiracy movement which amuses as much as it worries

Did you know that there were almost unstoppable techniques to no longer pay taxes or fines, to escape arrest, Urssaf or child welfare? To make a very quick summary of a very complicated thesis: the State, and everything linked to it, is illegal, and no administration has legal power over you. To free yourself from it, it is enough, among other things, to say: “I don’t contract”. Of course, this idea is false. The phrase became a “meme”, taken up mockingly on social networks, after the arrest of a couple who wanted to refuse to “contract” with the gendarmerie during a road check.

However, this is not a parody, nor an epiphenomenon. This formula refers to the theory of “sovereign beings”, a set of pseudo-legal beliefs which have gained an audience since the Covid-19 health crisis, which often veer into conspiracy, exploited by gurus hoping to profit from them.

David is not a guru, but today he plays a significant role in the dissemination of these ideas in France. He participated in the creation, in February 2022, of the Facebook group called “Illegal en France diffusion”, which brings together more than 11,500 members, and the group “Human rights union for justice”. This man, who admits not having any legal training but says he “accompanied by professionals”tells franceinfo that he created these entities “after having worked on the subject for many years, to alert the population and help us get the message across”.

The “French Republic presidency” and its Siret numbers

Reading the messages of “sovereign beings” is to immerse yourself in a parallel universe of obscure legal references and esoteric vocabulary. But among the most shared principles, there is the (false) idea that the French State has no legal existence, and that its orders or those of any administration can therefore be refused.

According to this theory, also explained by Pierre, the driver arrested in the video, France has no longer been a country since 1947, but a company. The proponents of this fallacious assertion notably brandish as proof the Siret numbers (the register of French establishments) associated with the entity “REPUBLIQUE FRANCAISE PRESIDENCE”, or with Urssaf, with town halls and gendarmeries. Except that the Siret number does not only list companies but “establishments” in general, including administrations.

What is more, these would be companies “foreigners registered in the United States”, also asserts David to franceinfo. The argument? They are absent from the French Trade and Companies Register (RCS), which lists companies, but would have a DUNS number, which would be its equivalent across the Atlantic. Here too, this is false: the DUNS number, provided by the American company Dun & Bradstreet, is not reserved for companies and does not imply establishment in the United States. This is a simple standardized identifier used to confirm that a company exists and to assess its solvency, for example.

It doesn’t matter, for those who believe in it, there is no longer a State but only a foreign company “REPUBLIQUE FRANCAISE PRESIDENCE” and its subsidiaries. In their eyes, many laws and administrative requests are therefore simple “internal regulations” of business, which it is possible to refuse as one refuses to sign a contract (hence the phrase “I don’t contract”).

This legal “wild card” strategy is just one example. Almost everything can be considered null and void, with ever more complex legal formulations. Examples: According to some of these groups, fines are illegal because the roads are not public roads. They belong – if you have followed everything – to administrations which are illegitimate private companies.

The “hatred of authority and the State” as a common point

On the “Illegal en France diffusion” group, we find a lot of requests for advice, most of them concerning money questions. Challenge taxes, Urssaf, fines, administrative seizures, the authority of the courts… These “sovereign citizens” bring together “diverse profiles presenting the same detestation of authority and the State” whose followers “respond, paradoxically, with the law to challenge the law”underlines Sylvain Delouvée, researcher in social psychology at Rennes 2 University, to AFP.

A strategy that an American lawyer even likened to “paper terrorism”, recalls the anti-discrimination NGO Anti-Defamation League. Because “sovereign beings” did not appear in France: the movement finds its origins in the United States, where the historical concern about seeing the emergence of a tyrannical federal state is historically strong. Since the 1970s, the organization Posse Comitatus deployed anti-government rhetoric and actions close to the “sovereign citizens” (“SovCit”) today, largely motivated by racist and anti-Semitic ideology, says the anti-racism group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

In France, the first followers of these “pseudo-legal arguments” emerged in 2015, Sylvain Delouvée explains to AFP. A certain “National Transitional Council” (CNT), created that year, defends the idea that “the laws are not legitimate” and calls for a peaceful march on the Elysée on July 14 to overthrow the government.

The “yellow vest” crisis as an accelerator

“These arguments based on the law then gained momentum with the ‘yellow vests’ crisis”, analysis for AFP Sebastian Dieguez, doctor in neuroscience and researcher at the University of Friborg (Switzerland). Figure of the “yellow vests”, Serge Petitdemange assured for example that the publication of a decree in 2016 had made the Constitution obsolete, and invalidated the election of Emmanuel Macron.

But the ideas conveyed by certain “sovereign beings” go even further. Many share the theory of “legal name fraud”, a conspiracy belief explained for example on the site Conspiracy Watch. According to them, the birth certificate is in fact a legal act signed without the consent of the person concerned, to forcibly associate each individual with a fraudulent legal entity, a “straw man”.

All agreements, contracts, invoices concerning this “living being” would in fact be made with this non-consented legal person, whose name is written in capital letters, as for a company on the registers. Hence the fact that the passenger insists that her name be written “in lower case” in the famous video of the traffic stop (mentioned at the beginning of this article). Worse still, all States would be bankrupt and their remaining assets would therefore have to go to “sovereign beings”… What illegitimate companies deprive you of by keeping you in ignorance and associating you with this false legal personality.

The “One Nation” community and Mia’s kidnapping

It is difficult to estimate the audience for these beliefs, but the figures for the groups who participate in spreading them on social networks are not reassuring. A Telegram group dedicated to “legal name fraud” has more than 21,000 subscribers, and 64,000 on the associated TikTok channel. Another TikTok channel which regularly broadcasts these arguments has nearly 68,000 subscribers and no less than 661,000 “likes”, while its first public video only dates from October 2023. Contacted by franceinfo, neither of the two answered.

Users regularly publish conspiratorial texts or videos on the Covid-19 pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia or pseudo-pedocriminal networks involving Child Welfare (ASE) and the “elites “. These theories can have dangerous consequences: in the United States, supporters of “SovCits” ideas shot dead two police officers during a traffic stop in Arkansas in 2010.

In France, a mother kidnapped her 8-year-old daughter, Mia, in 2021 for fear of a plot involving the ASE. She was a member of the “One Nation” community, co-founded by Alice Pazalmar, who notably called for “refuse all illegitimate authority”, by taking up certain arguments of “sovereign beings”. In this affair, Rémy Daillet-Wiedemann, a figure of French conspiracy, is cited. From Malaysia where he resided, the fifty-year-old is suspected of having incited the kidnapping of the little girl. He is also suspected of having inspired ultra-right attack plans to seize the Elysée in 2021.