For two hours, a triangle of streets in the 6th arrondissement of Paris came under the control of neo-fascists. On Saturday, May 11, several hundred people responded to the call of the Comité du 9 Mai ("May 9 Committee"), the tiny group whose nationalist chants, provocations and Nazi tattoos had shocked the public on May 6, 2023, and led to a commitment by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin to oppose – via the prefects – every demonstration initiated by "any ultra-right or far-right activist, or any association or collective, in Paris or anywhere else in the country." But this was to no avail.
A few hours before the rally, the Paris Administrative Court suspended the ban issued earlier in the week by the Paris Police Prefect, ruling that it represented "a serious and clearly illegal infringement of the freedom to demonstrate." As a result, identitarian, neo-fascist and royalist activists were able to march with total impunity.
This event was all the more important for the May 9 Committee as this year marked the 30th anniversary of the death of Sébastien Deyzieu. This young activist of the Œuvre française, a Petainist (supporting collaborationist regime leader Philippe Pétain) and anti-Semitic group, fell from a roof on May 7, 1994, after a chase with the police during a demonstration called "against American imperialism" and banned by the prefecture. The day after his death, the "black rats" (symbol of the Groupe Union Défense, the GUD), the Front National de la Jeunesse and the Jeunesses Nationalistes Révolutionnaires formed the Comité du 9 Mai, marking the date of his death, to call for the resignation of then interior minister Charles Pasqua and to commemorate the memory of the young man.
This year, once again, more than 600 activists were free to sing their nationalist songs, display the traditional symbols of the movement (black suns or Celtic crosses) tattooed on their arms or calves and march military-style. They were led by their leader Gabriel Loustau – son of Axel Lousteau, a GUD figure and former treasurer of far-right politician Marine Le Pen's micro-party, Jeanne.
The reasons given by Prefect Laurent Nuñez in support of the ban – "illicit concealment of the face" in 2023 or fear of "nationalist statements calling for hatred and discrimination" – did not frighten the nationalist ranks. Many had their faces covered by neckerchiefs. At the head of the procession, a member of the group's "security" gave a clear Nazi salute to accompany yet another rallying cry ("Europe, youth, revolution").
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