The militant Catholic movement Civitas is in the sights of the French government following remarks made at its summer university that were deemed antisemitic. On Monday, August 7th, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin called for the group to be dissolved.
The controversial remarks were made at the movement’s summer university by the polemicist Pierre Hillard, known for his antisemitic tough talk, who railed against the naturalisation of Jews introduced in France in 1791. He sees it as the starting point of a dangerous trend that led to the uncontrolled immigration from which France suffers today. He explained:
You had an event in September 1791, the naturalisation of the Jews. Before 1789, a Jew, a Muslim, or a Buddhist could not become French. Why couldn’t they become French? Because they were heretics. The naturalisation of Jews in 1791 opened the door to immigration. Perhaps we should go back to the situation before 1789.
These remarks against Jews were deemed “ignominious” by the minister of the interior on Twitter on Monday, August 7th, who therefore called for the dissolution of Civitas. The organisation, led by Alain Escada, a native of Belgium, would then join the list of organisations recently subject to dissolution proceedings, such as Génération Identitaire, which was effectively dissolved in 2021.
The Civitas association was founded in 1999 with the main aim of defending the Catholic Church and its image in the public arena, particularly in relation to cultural and artistic performances deemed blasphemous. In 2011, for example, the association organised demonstrations against the photographer Andres Serrano and his provocative work Piss Christ, depicting a plastic crucifix immersed in a glass of blood and urine. The fight against gay marriage in 2012 and 2013 also gave it the opportunity to grow stronger.
Transformed into a political party in 2016, without ever gaining a significant following, the group has enjoyed a toxic reputation since it was founded, not least because of the people it associates with, such as the philosopher Alain Soral and the comedian Dieudonné—non-believers but attached to a militant “cultural Catholicism” in the public sphere. According to Jean-Yves Camus, a reputed connoisseur of French far-right groups interviewed by Le Figaro, Civitas has gradually become more radical over the years, combining all kinds of alternative views around its initial core mission of defending Catholic culture—the most recent being opposition to the COVID vaccine. The anti-Masonic component of its discourse is also ever-present.
Recently, Civitas has been in the news again, opposing the installation of a reception centre for asylum seekers in Saint-Brévin-Les-Pins, Brittany and the use of a disused church to host a concert by LGBT star Bilal Hassani in Metz, Lorraine. The protest led to the resignation of the mayor of Saint-Brévin and the cancellation of the planned concert.
In May, Minister Darmanin launched offensives against other alternative movements on the French Right, for example, by trying—unsuccessfully—to have the traditional Action Française parade for the feast of Joan of Arc banned, and by obtaining the cancellation of a conference organised by the Institut Iliade in memory of the historian Dominique Venner.
The ministry defends itself against any bias, pointing out that in recent months, dissolution proceedings have also concerned militant Islamist organisations such as BarakaCity and the Collectif Contre l’islamophobie en France (CCIF).
