| Formation | January 1, 2018 |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Anti-fascism |
Region served | France |
Official language | French |
| Affiliations | New Popular Front |
The Jeune Garde is a French anti-fascist organisation. [1] [2]
The Jeune Garde was founded in January 2018 in Lyon. [3] In 2019, a Strasbourg section was founded and in 2020, a section in Paris was founded. [4] In 2021, local sections in Lille and Montpellier were founded. [5] The group uses the Three Arrows as its logo, basing itself off the logo of the French Section of the Workers' International of the first half of the 20th century. [6]
In September 2021, members of the far-right Zouaves Paris group assaulted Raphaël Arnault, the Jeune Garde's Lyon spokesperson, as he disembarked from a train arriving in Paris. [7] In late-November 2021, Jeune Garde demonstrators clashed with members of the Collectif Némésis, an Identitarian advocacy group that self-describes as feminist, after members of Némésis attempted to join a protest march against sexual violence in Paris organised by the Collectif NousToutes. [8] In December 2021, National Assembly deputy Alexis Corbière and regional councillor Raquel Garrido filed a case with the police against two supporters of far-right politician Éric Zemmour after the Jeune Garde published a video online of the two Zemmour supporters at a firing range doing target practice while talking about several politicians that they would hunt, including Cobière and Garrido. [9]
In February 2022, an anti-fascist conference in Strasbourg that the group attended was attacked by members of the neo-Nazi Strasbourg Offender hooligan group. [10] In May 2022, Arnault resigned as spokesperson for the Lyon section to run in the 2022 French legislative election against the candidate of the New Ecological and Social People's Union. [11] [12]
According to Europe 1, the group was involved in around ten clashes with the far-right in Lyon in 2023. [13]
In June 2024, ahead of the 2024 French legislative election, it joined the New Popular Front alliance in an effort to contrast the rising French far-right. Arnault was named La France Insoumise's candidate as part of the Front for Vaucluse's 1st constituency. [14]
In March 2018, the group published a statement describing their aims as re-invigorating the anti-fascist movement in the city, saying that pre-existing movements were too isolated from society and treated fascist groups as if they existed in a vacuum, neglecting the necessity of struggles against capitalism and racism and other forms of oppression. [15] Arnault has stated that increasing collaboration between different left-wing movements is a key objective for the group. [16]
Maya Valka, spokesperson for the Paris section, has stated that the group aims to develop a more day-to-day struggle against fascism, and not just an anti-fascism that responds to emergency situations. [17] Valka has also stated that group aims to develop and international and class-focused feminism, saying that feminism and anti-fascism go hand-in-hand. [18]
The Jeune Garde has been criticised by some anti-fascists for not doing enough to centre anti-racism in its movement. [19] The group has also been accused of promoting violence, with Arnault being designated with 3 Fiche S by French authorities. [14]
On January 23, 2025, the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, stated that his services were studying the administrative dissolution of the group. [20]