Academia Christiana alarms France more than terrorists

Last Sunday, 10 December, news broke of a declaration by the French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmaninm stating his intention to present a proposal to the Council of Ministers to dissolve the Academia Christiana training institute, founded in 2013 by Julien Langella. Today, it is presided over by 34-year-old Victor Aubert. The association, of Catholic inspiration, organises annual summer meetings, l'Université d'été, in which lectures, dances, sports activities, béhourd (medieval combat) tournaments, prayer and the celebration of Holy Mass according to the traditional Latin mass are offered. In the ten years of its existence, more than 2,000 young people have shared and benefited from the association's objectives of promoting love for one's homeland, one's history, and one's faith, in order to resist the dissolute globalist current.

The Academia was in fact born from the fundamental idea of channelling the energy of young people, often attracted by sterile political currents of the 'extreme right', into a serious, constructive, Catholic project, far from extremists and violence. A laudable project, which nevertheless seems not to be entirely free of contamination from the neo-pagan Right, close to the thought of figures like Julius Evola, sanctioned by the philosopher and writer Alain de Benoist.

For these activities, considered subversive, Victor Aubert received a visit from officers of the gendarmerie at his home, in front of his children, to deliver the letter from the Ministry of the Interior. An anonymous source familiar with the Ministry's dossier seems to have no doubts about the need to disband the association, putting it in the crosshairs along with three other unspecified 'extreme right-wing' groups: 'Under the pretext of an alleged threat to the French, he explained to Agence France Presse, [the Academie] repeatedly legitimises physical violence and the use of weapons'. One wonders if this means that the Ministry believes that the 'medieval weapons' of béhourd, a sport that is perfectly regulated internationally, including France, are real weapons?

In addition, the source continues, the association is allegedly guilty of using "a belligerent vocabulary" and "explicitly encouraging its militants to arm themselves and go on a 'crusade'", claiming "the need for 'legitimate defence'" in the face of the threat to France. Statements that are beyond belief.
President Victor Aubert's retort was inevitable: 'It's ridiculous, the government accuses us of inciting violence because we used a military metaphor in one of our communications, namely "forming an army of builders". We are accused of anti-Semitism because we recommend reading Charles Maurras or Jean Madiran'.

In a recent interview with Valeurs Actuelles, Aubert pressed on: 'Gérald Darmanin criticises us for reasons that seem hallucinating, incomprehensible and clearly unrelated to our association. In this letter from the Ministry of the Interior, there are no facts, but comments from speakers and articles diverted from their original meaning. As we said in a video, we are asking for an army of builders in the same way that one might sometimes ask for an army of entrepreneurs, or the president might ask for an army of doctors, etc. The use of the word 'army' is obviously meant in a metaphorical, spiritual sense. There is something rather ridiculous about these accusations'.

Returning to explain his own proposal (see here), Darmanin demonstrated he did not know exactly what he was talking about, since he claimed that unspecified speakers at l'Université d'été "this summer supported anti-Semitism, with people who believed that Jews were not people like other people", as well as giving "a great deal of support to collaboration, to Marshal Pétain". "It is not an association that corresponds, it seems to us, to the values of the Republic," Darmanin concluded. Yet, even Le Figaro admitted that the Minister had made a blunder, mistaking Academia Christiana for Civitas, disbanded by Darmanin himself on 4 October, because of a speech by Pierre Hillard, during a summer conference, deemed anti-Semitic.

It is curious that in a French Republic already on its knees in the face of continuous episodes of jihadist riots and murders, the Minister of the Interior should take vengeance on an association that practises blunt weaponry and speaks of cultural crusades and reconstruction armies. And it is even more curious that Darmanin portrays a Christian cultural association as dangerous, naming it so explicitly, while, after the killing in Crépol of 16-year-old Thomas Perotto by a Maghreb, the government directed the police and the press not to divulge the names of the 'Crépol gang'. And what was the reason for this silence? According to the newspaper Le Figaro, Darmanin showed another minister 'the names of the suspects placed in detention on the eve. ' They are French, but not one of them has a name of French origin. You will see the reaction it will provoke in the country... This case legitimately traumatises our compatriots. We need to put rules and order back in place, otherwise the country will go up in flames'', a minister commented anonymously.

No less curious is the fact that the Macron government has not only failed to take any measures against the self-styled anti-fascist movement Jeune Garde, the protagonist of multiple violent actions, but even, after the movement almost lynched a law student at the University of Lyon last March, its leader, Raphaël Arnault (see here), was invited to the National Assembly to speak on the fight against far-right terrorism...

So, according to Darmanin, it is better to call a factually violent association to parliament than to permit the mere existence of another one that sends out cultural crusades; it is better to lash out at French people who have fake weapons and propose popular dances than at immigrants who, with real weapons, shed blood on French soil.