In recent months, the intelligence services have arrested several times the increasingly organized “ultra-yellows”. They fear that in the future they and other radicalized groups will commit acts called “terrorists”, – Le Point reports.
The convergence between the most extreme yellow vests, called “ultrajones”, and black blocks is of concern to French intelligence. Several arrests since December have shown that some groups are not only more organized, but are also more armed, according to an investigation conducted by Le Point on Wednesday, February 26.
The arrest on Saturday 7 December confirmed these fears. Several “ultra-yellow and extreme left figures” gathered at AirBnb near Bordeaux. Led by a former soldier and a former burglar, they were arrested while they were making “offensive devices, including some explosives” intended for police during a demonstration scheduled for the same day.
On 23 January, a Gaetan B. was arrested by the side of a yellow vest cluster in Bordeaux. Although he did not have any weapons at the time of his arrest, in addition to drugs, he had hand grenades, fireworks, gas masks, sniper rifles and shotguns in his house. This summer, he will stand trial, including for possession of drugs and weapons without permission, the media reported.
Most recently, February 8, while still in Bordeaux, intelligence agencies liquidated a violent network that included several people already arrested at AirBnb in December. Additional arrests are scheduled for later this year for other groups monitored by the Central Territorial Intelligence Service.
“Radicalism has gone up a notch”, – said an intelligence source at Le Point.
“Ultragauch and Ultrajone met during the Paris events. The violence brought them together”, – she said. These radicalized yellow vests now seem to be assembled outside Paris, security measures in the capital have become too important.
In early January, Grenoble prosecutor Eric Weilant asked the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office to review cases of property damage claimed by ultra-left groups. Thus, the prosecutor wanted the damage to be “treated as terrorist acts.
Intelligence believes that “the way the ultra-left look like terrorism”, with the difference that the acts committed are not “serious violations”.
“The border has not been crossed, perhaps even they voluntarily remain just below… But we are not far from it”, – commented a source from Le Point.