Dissolution of Urgence Palestine and the Young Guard: the left denounces the authoritarian excesses of Bruno Retailleau

Stalingrad Square was filled with keffiyehs, Palestinian flags, and anti-fascist slogans, waving in the wind like indissoluble symbols of resistance. To protest the proceedings initiated by Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on April 30 against the anti-fascist group Young Guard and the pro-Palestinian collective Urgence Palestine, a rally was held on Tuesday, May 6. Numerous MPs and activists spoke before several hundred people gathered in support of the two targeted organizations.

"We have to show them that when we attack social movements, we fight back, and we will not remain silent," he said. Yasmine. The first speaker of the evening, the Palestinian student was keen to highlight the particularly violent context in which Urgence Palestine must cope with the announcement of its impending dissolution, "at a time when the siege is raging in Gaza and the criminal famine of the Israeli occupation is at its most violent," she stormed. It was also a hard blow for the Young Guard, co-founded by the rebellious MP Raphaël Arnault.

But, far from being discouraged, he recalls the victories and the impact that the activist group has already had. "When we started the work in Lyon in 2018 , there were five far-right premises. Everyone thought we were crazy, everyone said it was a lost cause. However, we rolled up our sleeves and managed to close all the neo-Nazi premises in the city by June 2024."

Alongside him, several left-wing MPs were present to express their solidarity, and above all, to call for a united front against the criminalization of the Palestine solidarity movement, anti-fascist struggles, and against the authoritarian drift of power. "The extreme right demands, and the government complies, shame on it ," denounces communist Elsa Faucillon. "It is the rise of authoritarianism, the fascist drift of an ultra-security and liberal capitalism, ready to do anything to crush protest. We are witnessing a real devitalization of democracy."

For his part, the leader of La France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, points to illegitimate methods and decisions "unrelated to the potential threat they represent." "We arrange to make any democratic demonstration invisible through incidents that may break out here or there, and from which we take advantage to only talk about them, without mentioning the reasons why we gather," he warns. Because Bruno Retailleau's objective here is to make the struggles invisible, and to demonize the left.

Faced with this attempt, a stance becomes more urgent than ever, for Olivier Besancenot: "To the entire social and political left, to all resistance movements: we know the extent to which disagreements run through us, and this is legitimate. Despite these discussions, it is time to stand together."

Like the Earth Uprisings before them, the organizations and parties present nevertheless hope to obtain an appeal, and to this end are calling for a large-scale mobilization. The lawyer for the Urgence Palestine collective, Maître Elsa Marcel, will refer the matter to the administrative court via a "summary-liberty" procedure as soon as the dissolution decree is published. The group has also called for a demonstration on May 17, the day commemorating the mass exodus that followed the creation of Israel (known as the Nakba ) in 1948.