The Merci foundation at the origin of this project, finally abandoned in Callac (Côtes-d’Armor), was the target of threats, insults and intimidation. With this complaint, she does not want to let “hate and fear pass without saying anything”.
This is the story of a somewhat declining town in Brittany, 2,000 inhabitants, called Callac in the Côtes-d’Armor, which wanted to welcome a few refugee families in order to revitalize itself. Threats, insults, intimidation coming mostly from outside and from the extreme right ended up creating an untenable climate and pressure. The municipality “various left” finally abandoned the project. The Merci foundation, that’s its name, which ran it has resigned itself but does not want to let it pass “hate and fear without saying anything”. She announced on Wednesday April 12 that she had filed a complaint against X, before the Paris public prosecutor, for online harassment, insult linked to religious affiliation and incitement to hatred.
From the first presentation meeting at Callac of its project to welcome refugees, the foundation suffered an outpouring of hatred by email but also on social networks, in the comments at the bottom of the many publications on the subject disseminated by Internet sites. extreme right as Secular response or Breizh Info. “We come to regret that the gas chambers are a myth in the face of these Yids who want to bring us their bougnoules”one can read among the sentences found in the complaint against X.
Civitas activists and Reconquest supporters
“I was extremely shocked by the way everything happened, first for the people of Callac. The local elected officials experienced the horror, that is to say they had threats of death and rape, remembers Benoit Cohen, one of the co-founders of the foundation behind the project. We threatened to burn down their house, to attack their children, we were spared on that side. On the other hand, we were not spared by the words. We happen to be called Cohen, a Jewish name, so in addition to the racism that appeared in all these messages, anti-Semitism was omnipresent. We were dealing with mafia methods, people who threatened, insulted. They won, it’s a precedent for them, it means that these methods work. What is terrible is that these mafia methods are supported by well-established political parties.”
“When the project was abandoned, Éric Zemmour tweeted within the hour, to congratulate himself. He is pleased that people, by threatening elected officials with death, can obtain the cessation of a project.”
Benoit Cohen, co-founder of the foundation behind the projectat franceinfo
A demonstration brought together, in Callac, 150 people hostile to the project, with barely a dozen inhabitants of the surrounding area among them. It was actually mostly activists from the Catholic movement Civitas, identity or Reconquest, the movement of Éric Zemmour. All denounced a major replacement operation, according to this conspiracy theory which announces the future eviction of “native” French people for the benefit of non-European peoples.
The home of a burnt mayor in Loire-Atlantique
Prior to this complaint, 16 complaints were filed locally with the Saint-Brieuc prosecutor. There are complaints from elected officials from Callac, and also from local journalists: complaints for death threats, damage to public property and calls for hatred. This time, the complaint filed on March 17 was filed with the Paris public prosecutor with the hope that an investigation would be entrusted to the “online hate” pole of the prosecution and to specialized investigators.
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“Today we are really expecting an extremely quick, extremely firm response from the Paris public prosecutor, and therefore the opening of a preliminary investigation, explains Maître Vincent Bringharth, lawyer of the fund endowment and the Cohen family, founder of Merci. That investigations be made on all the people who may have posted messages. A message is enough to be prosecuted and anonymity on the internet is a decoy. Today, we have the technical means to know who may be behind this or that IP address.”
“Callac is a laboratory. It is unthinkable that we respond to these intimidations with a renunciation and not with a judicial response so that these expressions of hatred are subject to sanctions.”
Me Vincent Bringharthat franceinfo
“When you are told in particular that the gas chambers must be restoredcontinues Master Vincent Bringharth, it is not an expression that belongs to the debate of ideas”. In a recent forum, several associations for the defense of exiles denounced an escalation of violence against those, elected officials or structures, who welcome foreigners. They call on the government to react to put an end to the actions fomented, according to them, by the far right. This follows the fire last month at the home of the mayor of Saint-Brevin-les-Pins (Loire-Atlantique), targeted because of the move to his town of a reception center for asylum seekers.
