Four men from the neo-Nazi movement appeared before the special assize court. The first day of the trial was largely devoted to the profile of the one who was considered the leader of the group.
“It is a period of my life when I was radicalized, shocked after the attacks of 2015.“At the helm, Alexandre Gilet, a former volunteer deputy gendarme now 27 years old, is the main accused in a very particular trial. This is a first in France: four men from the neo-Nazi ultra-right movement have been appearing since this Monday, June 19 before the special assize court competent in terrorism.Previous cases of this type, the Barjols group or the OAS file, had been dealt with by a criminal court.
>> Justice: the terrorist threat from the ultra-right is increasing in France
Alexandre Gilet, in jeans and a black t-shirt, a long lock and the rest of his hair very short, is in the box. He has been in detention for four years. The other three co-defendants appear free. The prosecution considers the young man to be the leader of the group, and one of his associates specified during the investigation that he wanted to do “worse than the Bataclan“.
Photos where they gave the Hitler salute
Investigators found around 20 weapons in his home, including two Kalashnikovs. In his computer, a statement written as a text of demands, prepared ahead of an attack planned for November 13, 2018. They also found a manifesto, in the style of ultra-right mass killers like Anders Breivic, the terrorist who in 2011 killed 77 people in Utoya, Norway.
Alexandre Gilet and the three other defendants met on online forums. Their discussion, assumed to be neo-Nazi, was called “WaffenKraft”, meaning “arms power” in German. It was about hatred of Arabs, Jews, homosexuals, and violent projects to be put in place.
In the summer of 2018, all four find themselves in the forest, near Tours, to train in the handling of weapons. Hundreds of photos and videos were found: the young men photographed and filmed themselves giving the Hitler salute or shooting at targets.
Donald Trump and Viktor Orban as role models
During this first day of hearing, the professionals who looked into the personality of Alexandre Gilet explained their conclusions. Then, the Court listened to his relatives, then the accused himself. Then emerges, over the speeches, the profile of an isolated young person, watered during childhood and then adolescence on screens and video games.
After failing at school for a long time, he ended up joining the army for six months, then he finally became a volunteer assistant gendarme, out of a taste for patriotic values. He stands out for his insubordination. The young man then chose to begin training to become a bus driver.
His parents, separated since he was three years old, describe a boy “nice”, “shy”. They assure him: they discovered his Nazi ideology during his arrest. “There were things he didn’t like, but neo nazi, I was shockedcertifies his mother.It’s not the education he was given”completes his father.
The young man says he is seduced today by personalities like Donald Trump, or Viktor Orban, but he claims to no longer be in a Nazi system of thought. “His rage of 2017-2018 had its origins in the Islamist attacks” personality investigators noted, as a trauma that caused him to self-radicalize on the internet. He told them, among other things, before the trial: “Cwent way too far, it was like fanaticism, a desire for revenge… and I find myself where I am now.” But he pleads: “I was not psychologically capable of taking action.”
Mosques and Jean-Luc Mélenchon among the potential targets
On the benches of the civil parties, lawyers represent the targets that this neo-Nazi group had considered: the League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra), the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (Crif), or even Jean- Luc Melenchon.
We know that the defendants were also and above all targeting mosques in the Paris region and places where Muslim populations are concentrated. He, like his major accomplices, faces 30 years of imprisonment, the accused who was a minor at the material time 20 years. Verdict on June 30.