With just a few days to go before the second round of parliamentary elections, the news made the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) camp very happy: As reported by the newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné on Wednesday, July 3, eight alleged members of the Jeune Garde ("Young Guard"), a group of "antifa" (anti-fascist) activists aged between 20 and 30, were placed under judicial supervision on June 27 and charged with "group violence resulting in incapacity of more than eight days in a place of public passenger transport on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nation or religion," the Paris prosecutor's office confirmed to Le Monde.

According to the prosecutor's office, the attack took place on May 27 in Paris. A 15-year-old boy, a passenger on metro line 2, was approached in the evening at Victor-Hugo station by a group who questioned him about his relationship with Palestine. According to Le Canard Enchaîné, they suspected the teenager of belonging to the Jewish Defense League. A few hours earlier, activists from that group had tried to prevent an event held by pro-Palestinian activist and radical left La France Insoumise candidate for the European elections Rima Hassan at Paris-Dauphine University.

As reported by Le Canard Enchaîné, the teenager was then beaten and forced to chant "Long live Palestine!" in front of the activists, who filmed him and posted an audio recording – since deleted – on their Instagram account. The prosecutor cited the conclusions of the young man's examination by the medical-judicial unit, which determined that "12 days of work incapacity" were the result of the "psychological repercussions" of this aggression.

Following the teenager's complaint on May 28, the prosecutor referred the investigation to the regional transport safety authority. In a statement published on its Instagram account, Jeune Garde did not deny that a "brief altercation" occurred but asserted that it did not give rise to "any physical violence." The organization, which also stated that it has "always been committed to fighting anti-Semitism," denounced the "disproportionate means used to deal with a verbal altercation."

Case widely shared by the far right

When contacted, the lawyer for the eight defendants, Tristan Soulard, insisted that his clients perpetrated "no physical violence." "There was an altercation between pro- and anti-Palestinians, which continued all the way into the metro," Soulard explained, "and after one station everyone got out." As for the audio recording, he said, it was not posted on Jeune Garde's Instagram account but on "another antifa account."

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