The French government has issued a plea against vigilantism in the wake of the slaying of a teenager in rural France by a group reported to have shouted “stab white people”.
A representative of Emmanuel Macron’s French government has now visited the rural community of Crépol where, over a week ago, a gang of “outsiders” raided the annual village dance and stabbed several people, killing sixteen-year-old Thomas. It is reported witnesses heard the attackers say “We are here to stab white people”.
In remarks that followed not only attack, but which appear to have been more aimed at the reaction among the public to the brutal attack, government spokesman Olivier Veran said the state shared the pain of those impacted, but warned people should not be tempted to take the law into their own hands.
Veran said it was for the judiciary to dispense justice, not the French people, and that there was a risk of society reaching a tipping point over the attack and response, reports Le Figaro. He said: “Can’t stand these violent gangs anymore? We neither. What cost Thomas his life was neither a news item nor a brawl. There is a risk of our society tipping over if we are not up to the task… we do not respond to violence with violence, but with justice”.
For those who felt motivated to strike back at the migrant community they perceived as being behind the death of Thomas at the village dance, justice came swiftly this week, with six people receiving sentences of six to ten months in prison each for their involvement in what was described as an “ultra-right” demonstration in the town of Romans-sur-Isère on Saturday. The group were also debarred from standing for election for five years with their conviction on Monday.
It was claimed that some of the young people who launched the attack on the Crépol dance had travelled from the Romans-sur-Isère suburb of Drôme and the prosecution said this “ultra-right” group had gone there in return to exact revenge for the death. Among those in court were reported to have been a soldier, a computer developer, and students between the ages of 18 and 25.
The public prosecutor warned “No one can take justice into their own hands outside the law” and that anyone who tried would be punished.
The French government followed up the prosecutions with the statement it was going to ban three “ultra-right” groups it said was responsible for the march on the migrant neighbourhood at the weekend, one of which it named as the ‘Martel Division’, presumably named for the 8th century Frankish leader who united France and played a pivotal role in turning back Islamic occupation of Europe at the Battle of Tours.
Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin said of the ban: “I am going to propose the end of a group called the Martel Division. Just the name obviously scares us… I believe that there is a mobilization among the ultra-right which wants to push us, as Mr. Roussel said, into civil war… No one is going to replace the State.”
The violent attack on the French village that ended with the death of Thomas comes amid deep-seated fears among many in France about an apparent deterioration in public safety, with the country rocked by a series of terror attacks as well as an endless stream of what is euphemistically called “random” violence. Some have explicitly linked this violence to the changing nature of French society, driven by mass migration, and former right-wing Presidential Candidate and writer Eric Zemmour called the Crépol attack an instance of “francocide.”
Zemmour’s political ally and fellow Reconquête member Marion Maréchal has struck similar notes, remarking the attack has the hallmarks of “anti-white racism” which risks an “ethnic war” and the “beginnings of civil war”.