A French court has convicted three members of the far-right Barjols group who planned to carry out a coup that would include an assassination attempt on French President Emmanuel Macron. The defendants in this case were found guilty of conspiracy to prepare a terrorist act and sentenced to terms ranging from one to three years in prison. On this subject writing Le Monde newspaper.
In total, there were 13 defendants in the case, nine of whom were acquitted. Another defendant received a six-month suspended prison sentence for illegal possession of weapons.
Jean-Pierre Bouillet, 66, received the longest sentence – four years in prison, including one year suspended. The court sentenced the other two activists to three years in prison (including two years suspended). At the same time, according to the prosecutor’s article, the defendants in the case were threatened with 10 years in prison.
“They put me in jail for what I said. I have the right to express myself,” said convict Mikael Iber, adding that he had been in detention for 50 months awaiting trial.
Three members of the far-right group Barjols (“Barzholtsy”) were arrested in November 2018 in the Moselle region of northeastern France. According to the prosecution, in the movement’s Facebook community (owned by Meta*), its participants discussed the coup. How transmits France 24, this group was created in 2017, shortly after the attacks by Islamists against the editorial staff of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and the terrorist attack in the Bataclan concert hall in Paris.
A key part of the militants’ plan was the attempted assassination of Macron, which was to be carried out during the celebration of the centenary of the end of the First World War. The attackers wanted to bring a ceramic knife, which is not recognized by metal detectors, to the solemn event and strike.
Police later found a knife and a bulletproof vest in Bouillet’s car, along with three firearms and ammunition at his home.
The defense for the defendants in the case insisted the group had no clear plan of action. Buye’s lawyer, Olivia Ronen, regretted that the court did not recognize the case as “inflated” due to the lack of conclusive evidence.
What is known about “Barzholtsy”
British newspaper The Guardian Remarks that the nickname Les Barjols (“Barjols”, people of the French commune of Barjols) was given by the inhabitants of Mali to the participants in the French military operation “Serval” (2013-2014) against the rebel Tuareg tribe, Al- Qaeda ** and Islamists.
The prosecutor’s office called the “Barzholites” a “hotbed of violence”. The department representative pointed out that, despite the apparent eccentricity, the band members pose a “real threat.”
During the court hearings, the prosecution read extracts from the correspondence of the “Barjol”, many of which were racist. The members of the group spoke in particular of the migration crisis, the fear of civil war and hostility towards Macron.
Among others, the “Barjols” were suspected of preparing attacks against mosques and migrants. “I was so angry, so angry that I could actually say something like that,” one of the defendants, a 55-year-old woman named Natalie, told court when asked about her call for the kidnapping and the burning of Muslims.
The Barjols’ lawyers have insisted that most of the group’s representatives are marginalized people from the countryside. In particular, they support the Yellow Vests protest movement, which has been organizing demonstrations against Macron’s social and economic reforms since 2018.
*Meta’s activities in the implementation of Facebook and Instagram in Russia are recognized as extremist and prohibited
** terrorist organization banned in Russia
