Annecy attack: “No place” for the ultra-right, says the president of the agglomeration

2023-06-10 13:15:56

A few hours after the knife attack which left six injured, including four children, around thirty people gathered on Thursday at the Pâquier playground in Annecy. Protesters who responded to calls from far-right movements on social networks with the hashtag: “francicide”, a term coined by Éric Zemmour.

While calls are launched for white marches all over France by this movement, Frédérique Lardet, president (Horizons) of the urban community of Greater Annecy denounces on France news this type of recovery. “These demonstrations have no place with us today in Annecy”, she said before adding: “These political acts prior to obtaining answers have no place and will not have never their place on our territory”.

For the time being, the Annecy prosecutor, Line Bonnet-Mathis, considered that the motivations of the assailant seemed devoid of “apparent terrorist motive”, adding that she could not “exclude at this stage a senseless act”.

However, Frédérique Lardet believes that this gathering of the ultra-right represents “a microcosm” which defied the ban on demonstrations by the prefecture of Haute-Savoie.

Another undeclared demonstration in mid-May

The elected official who assures that “Annexians are rather sensitive, peaceful people”, also recognizes that the public authorities will have to provide “responses, as elected officials, to put in place and to give to Annecy residents who are worried about their safety, but not to mention ultra-right, not to mention racism, not to use abject terms,” she adds.

Already mid-May, an undeclared event which had brought together dozens of nationalist people in the city had created another controversy and made a part of the political class react. The police intervened.

On Twitter, the environmental regional councilor Fabienne Grebert was moved by this demonstration which “is cold in the back”. She had denounced a “perfume of 1934” maintained by “militias with warlike words”. “What is the state doing to prevent this? Trivialize the far right! SHAME ! “, she scolded.

The mayor of Annecy had also “firmly condemned the demonstration by far-right activists”, confirming that it had not been authorized. “The messages that are conveyed are not acceptable in our democracy, neither in Annecy nor elsewhere,” insisted the elected official. The Annecy prosecutor’s office has announced the opening of a preliminary investigation.