Militants tried for Macron attack plot

PARIS: A dozen people with links to a French far-right group went on trial yesterday, accused of plotting to assassinate President Emmanuel Macron during a World War I memorial and commit a string of other attacks.

Prosecutors say the 13 members of the group, known as Les Barjols, conspired to engineer a putsch, which involved a plan for an attack on Mr Macron during a public appearance back in 2018.

Citing evidence collected online, from telephone conversations and meetings, the prosecutors say the suspects also planned to kill migrants, and attack mosques.

None of the plots allegedly prepared by the 11 men and two women aged between 26 and 66 ever came to anything, which caused prosecutors to downgrade some of the initial charges over the course of their fouryear investigation.

The main remaining accusation is a charge of conspiring to commit a terrorist act, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

A lawyer for the defence, Lucile Collot, said the prosecution’s case was based “on the fiction that a violent act was going to happen”, calling the accusation of a planned terrorist act “misplaced”.

In 2018, France’s domestic intelligence services received a tip-off saying that a far-right militant based in the French Alps region, Jean-Pierre Bouyer, was planning to attack Mr Macron during a World War I peace treaty centenary commemoration in November of that year.

French anti-terror prosecutors began investigating on Oct 31, against a backdrop of boiling social anger in France over rising fuel prices which was later to result in the creation of the Yellow Vest protest movement.

On Nov 6 police arrested Mr Bouyer, 62 at the time, and three others suspected of far-right links in the eastern French Moselle region.

During a search of Mr Bouyer’s car, they found a commando-style fighting knife and an army vest.

In his home, officers also discovered firearms and ammunition.

Police then went on to arrest other members of the Barjols movement, an extreme-right nationalist and antiimmigration group formed on Facebook in 2017 and holding secret meetings.

Its presumed leader, Denis Collinet, was arrested in 2020.

The trial is set to close on Feb 3, court officials said.