Three members of Generation Identity group jailed for six months over incident in 2018

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A court in France has jailed three members of the far-right pan-European group Generation Identity after it carried out an anti-immigrant operation in the Alps.

The tribunal at Gap ordered the three to serve six months in prison and fined them €2,000 (£1,800) each; the organisation was ordered to pay a fine of €75,000, the maximum that could be imposed.

In April 2018, about 100 members of Generation Identity – which has a branch in the UK – organised a vast operation to stop immigrants crossing into France near the Italian border at the Col de l’Échelle.

Group members, dressed in blue jackets, scaled the mountain pass at an altitude of 1,762 metres (5,781ft), unveiled a giant banner reading “Closed border: no way” and set up a “symbolic border” in the snow using plastic fencing. As part of the operation, they hired two helicopters to overfly the site, stating their aim was to ensure “no illegal immigrants enter France”.

Organisers said they wanted to notify those trying to cross that the border was closed and “should return home”. They pledged to continue “patrolling” the area, but were removed by police.

At an earlier hearing, the three defendants were accused of carrying out “activities carried out in conditions likely to create confusion with the exercise of a public duty in the mind of the public” – in other words impersonating officials, in this case border guards.

Their uniform jackets, marked vehicles and “military language” were said to have deliberately led immigrants to believe they were police officers.

In November 2017, an ITV investigation for the documentary Undercover – Inside Britain’s New Far Right, claimed Generation Identity, which started in France claiming to represent “indigenous Europeans”, was recruiting British members and sending them to military-style training camps abroad.

A senior Norwegian member told a reporter who infiltrated the group: “We want young normal people, who want to get involved and we train them.”

Generation Identity is a proponent of the far right “great replacement” conspiracy theory that claims white people are becoming a minority in Europe.

Damhnait McKenna, the leader of the organisation’s UK and Ireland branch, said its ideology was based on “ethnocultural identity” and it wanted “all illegal immigrants” repatriated.

Six months before the Alps operation, Generation Identity had chartered a boat to stop humanitarian organisations picking up immigrants in the Mediterranean.

The public prosecutor Raphaël Balland had asked for the accused, Clément Gandelin, 24, Romain Espino, 26, and Damien Lefèvre, 29, during an earlier court hearing in July to be sent to prison.

Gandelin, from Lyon, is president of Generation Identity and claimed he was responsible for the operation the group labelled “Defend Europe”.

Pierre-Vincent Lambert, a lawyer for the accused, said his client would appeal against the verdict.

Generation Identity insists it is not far-, ultra- or alt-right and claims to vet members for extremist views. Police have been investigating links between the movement and the alleged gunman in the Christchurch mosque attacks that killed 51 people in March.

Generation Identity is among those being targeted by a proposed law in the UK banning hate groups before they commit acts of violence. On Sunday, the Observer spoke to an informant who had infiltrated the UK group and claimed two members were currently serving in the Royal Navy.