PARIS — French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Saturday directed Interior Minister Manuel Valls to take immediate steps to dissolve the extreme right group known as Revolutionary Nationalist Youth, believed to have neo-nazi ties.
The group has been linked to the death of 18-year-old gay rights activist Clement Meric.
Meric, a student at the prestigious Sciences-Po university, was killed during a clash with the group after emerging from a Paris shop last Wednesday.
A French Interior Ministry official told LGBTQ Nation on Monday that the Revolutionary Nationalist Youth is the militant wing of a far-right group called the Third Way.
Never Miss a Beat
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
The spokesman for Interior Minister Manuel Valls acknowledged that Revolutionary Nationalist Youth’s leader, Serge Ayoub, had been questioned by Parisian police but is not considered a suspect. Ayoub denied Saturday that the group had anything to do with Meric’s murder.
Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office, told LGBTQ Nation that five people detained in Meric’s death went before a judge on Saturday and the main suspect, named Esteban, was being investigated on suspicion of murder.
The five suspects are aged between 19 and 32 and include one woman, and several are known to have links to far-right groups, said Thibault-Lecuivre.
Esteban, who is in his 20’s, and suspected of having dealt the fatal blow to Meric, told investigators he did not intend to kill.
Thibault-Lecuivre said Esteban is a known “skinhead.”