FRANCE: Government To Ban Extreme Right Anti-Gay Group French Spring

Following Dominque Venner's suicide at the altar of Notre Dame Cathedral, the French government announced yesterday that it is seeking to ban French Spring, the extreme right anti-gay group to which Denner reportedly belonged.

The nebulous movement, which loosely links a number of ultra-nationalist and Nazi-sympathising groups, is accused of making recent threats to public figures – including Frigide Barjot, the more moderate leader of anti-gay marriage protests.  Groups linked to Printemps Français [French Spring] are believed to be planning attacks on police, journalists and, possibly Ms Barjot, during the march due to be attended by up to 500,000 opponents of same-sex marriage. Interior Minister Manuel Valls said the splinter groups planned to go along “not to demonstrate but to attack symbols of a Republic, which these far-right groups hate.”  In a declaration published on the day of the suicide, Printemps Français said France was “now subject to forces which wish to reduce it to servitude. The battle is only just beginning. It will continue until victory is won.”

International Business Times has more:

French Spring released a statement threatening to target "the government and all its appendices, the collaborating political parties and lobbies where the ideological programmes are developed and the organs which spread it". "This is a call to violence," Valls told radio station France Info, and said there had been a number of death threats, which he does not "take lightly". "Justice will have to act because it is intolerable that in the Republic there can be these messages of hate," he continued. "There is no place for groups that challenge the Republic, democracy and which also attack individuals."

Manif Pour Tous has vehemently denied any relationship with French Spring. MPT leader Frigide Barjot has said that she might not attend tomorrow's planned massive anti-gay rally in Paris because the government has refused to protect her from French Spring radicals, who are believed to be behind many of the most violent anti-gay riots that have rocked France in recent weeks.  The all-male anti-gay topless group HOMMEN is reportedly made up of French Spring members and their photos feature prominently on the group's Facebook page.

VIDEO: From their official YouTube channel, below is French Spring's clip in support of tomorrow's anti-gay protest. You'll note that despite Frigide Barjot's claim of non-affiliation, French Spring uses Manif Pour Tous imagery in their video.

UPDATE: Just posted to French Spring's Facebook page.