Believing that politicians had "lacked firmness against the far left, out of intellectual complacency or cowardice", Gérald Darmanin affirms in the Journal du Dimanche that "no more ZAD (zone to defend) will settle in our country. Neither in Sainte-Soline nor elsewhere." The Minister of the Interior announced the creation in Beauvau of an "anti-ZAD cell, with specialized lawyers". It will see the light of day on September 1, according to his entourage.

While accusations are multiplying against "police violence" during demonstrations against pension reform or water reservoirs as in Sainte-Soline, the minister also ensures that he has "never had a trembling hand for those who dishonor their own uniform". He announces that "36 judicial investigations" have been opened by the IGPN, "the police of the police", and 2 by the IGGN (the equivalent for the gendarmes) since the beginning of the mobilization against the pension reform.

Defco in the minister's sights

It also recalls that in 2021, "111" police officers and gendarmes had been sanctioned, and "101" in 2020, for "disproportionate use of force". The minister nevertheless once again supports the security forces by insisting on the violence of some demonstrators. "In Sainte-Soline as in some wild demonstrations, it was not policing: it was guerrilla warfare." After the launch of the procedure for the dissolution of the movement "The Soulings of the Earth", one of the organizers of the demonstration of Sainte-Soline, Gérald Darmanin announces that he will do the same for Defco (Collective Defense), a movement of Rennes that "calls for uprising".

In total, he notes, "since March 16, 1,093 police, gendarmes and firefighters have been injured". There were "2,579 arson attacks and 316 attacks on public buildings". "When violence, thugs and the ultra-left get involved, then it is the duty of the police to say stop," he said. "I refuse to give in to the intellectual terrorism of the far left, which consists in overturning values: the thugs would become the aggressors and the police the aggressors."

Charge against the Nupes

Asked about the petition calling for the dissolution of the BRAV-M (motorcycle police in Paris), which had collected Saturday night more than 240,000 signatures, Gérald Darmanin considers that it is "a politicized petition, relayed by the rebellious France who hates the police". As for the concerns expressed by the UN Special Rapporteur and the Council of Europe on the way force is used in France, the minister replied: "I hear the criticism but I encourage their authors, rather than commenting on video clips from New York or Brussels, to come to the field."

Questioned also on the ultra-left, he ensures that the intelligence services had identified "in France 2,200 S files" belonging to this movement. He denounced "a very worrying complacency of the political movements that have their entrances to the National Assembly". "I'm sounding the alarm," he adds. According to him, the Nupes "takes the slope of this ultra-left of the 1970s", "takes hostage the republican left".

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