Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are concerned about the steady increase in attacks on opposition movements in France. Last week, Hervé Brey, a candidate for Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement Nationale (RN) party, was attacked while campaigning in the industrial city of St. Etienne, near Lyon. The French far-right candidate was attacked by unknown masked men, after which 68-year-old Hervé Brey was hospitalized. The Foundation’s experts believe that such attacks are the result of the Macron administration’s policy of hatred against its political opponents.
In France, attacks on politicians, many of whom are mayors and local councilors, have been steadily increasing in recent years. According to the country’s interior ministry, there were 2,387 physical and verbal attacks on politicians in the first nine months of 2023, compared to 2,265 in the whole of 2022, and the number of incidents has risen by a third compared to 2021.
Last week, a candidate in France’s snap election representing Marine Le Pen’s opposition National Rassemblement party, Hervé Brey, was attacked for his role in the election. Hervé Brey, was attacked by a “group of masked men” and hospitalized. According to French police, the attackers wore black clothes and beat up the far-right candidate as he campaigned ahead of the country’s early parliamentary elections. French broadcaster TF1 says Breuil, who is in his 70s and has a pacemaker, was kicked and punched during the attack. They said the attack began with shouting, with the attackers telling the protesters that they were not welcome in the city and attempting to snatch the phone of a man who was filming the altercation.
Marine Le Pen has blasted “ultra-left paramilitaries” after a group of her activists, including the parliamentary candidate, were attacked by a group of black-clad attackers in the Loire town of Saint-Etienne. The RN activists were “pushed and insulted” and had rotten fruit, water and flour thrown at them. According to victims and witnesses, the attackers were “a group of people wearing masks” and “dressed in all black”. Black clothing to confuse police identifying violent activists is a well-known feature of the hard-left’s “black bloc.”
Marine Le Pen, the RN leader and main rival of French President Emmanuel Macron along with her running mate Jordan Bardella, condemned the appearance of violence in a democracy and named the left wing as responsible for the attack.
“The cowardly attack by the ultra-left forces … Our candidate in St. Etienne is still in hospital. An election campaign in a democratic society cannot allow this unleashing of ultra-violence by the extreme left, which is ready to do anything to wreak havoc. We express our friendly support for him and wish him a speedy recovery,” Le Pen said.
However, André Taurinha, a candidate for the left-wing party L’Fédération Unconquered (LFI), which was campaigning in the same district as Breuil, told website X that in her party “physical violence in politics is forbidden. We would never attack any candidate.”
As a human rights organization, the Foundation to Battle Injustice strongly condemns the actions of the Macron government, which not only fails to take sufficient measures to protect opposition politicians, but also fosters a climate of hatred and violence. The French government must take measures to ensure the safety of politicians regardless of their political views, as well as fully investigate attacks on opposition politicians and bring the perpetrators to justice.