Far-right Generation Identity trio jailed for hunting migrants with helicopters
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Three members of French far-right group Generation Identitaire — Generation Identity — were sentenced to six months in prison on Thursday for using helicopters to intercept migrants crossing the border from Italy.
Euronews reports that the organisation itself was also fined €75,000 by a court in the Hautes-Alpes town of Gap.
It had rented two helicopters, a plane and patrol vehicles tagged with the slogan “Defend Europe” to hunt migrants crossing the Alps in April 2018. It claimed to have handed over four migrants to authorities.
The defendants were prosecuted for “activities carried out under conditions likely to create confusion in the minds of the public with the exercise of a public function”.
Generation Identitaire was established in France in 2012 and now operates in many European countries, including Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom. In 2017 it used a boat to try and prevent the docking of rescue vessels carrying migrants from the Meditteranean Sea.
“This political decision is an honour, a medal, but shows the determination to suppress those who defend France,” Lefevre wrote. He said the sentences amounted to the state’s “persecution of youth who dare to prove symbolically and peacefully that defending our borders is possible”.
Despite the show of pride at the sentence, all three will appeal the ruling – which their lawyer denounced as being made under “political, moral, and media pressure” upon a “court that didn’t have the courage” to resist.
