French police uncovered today a secret French neo-Nazi organization of more than 100 active members throughout the country. Nine adults and 13 minors have been arrested and charged with plotting against “the security of the state.”
Acting on orders from the State Security Court, police officers swooped down on cells of the movement in Paris, Marseilles, Lyons and other centers. They seized anti-Jewish and anti-Negro propaganda material, as well as Nazi emblems, pictures of Hitler and explosives.
Police officials indicated that they believed that the French organization was part of the World Union of National Socialists, and that it was also in close contact with Colin Jordan’s British National Socialist party. Police sources said that a number of foreigners residing in France, particularly of “Anglo-Saxon origin,” were believed implicated and would soon be expelled from France.
French security agents have been watching the neo-Nazis for more than six months. They obtained their first definite lead in a riot provoked earlier this year by Nazi elements who stormed a Paris cinema where Socialist students were holding a meeting. After the riot, Patrick Lemaire, identified as head of a right-wing organization, was arrested. Documents found in his home led the police to the 13 minors, all residents of Reims.
Among those arrested was Yves Janes, 41, believed to be the “fuehrer” of the French neo-Nazis. Police found in Jane’s home Nazi uniforms, emblems, pictures and secret documents. The confiscated files seemed to indicate that the organization’s only “political ideology” was rabid racism, anti-Jewish and anti-Negro. The organization was planning a number of “intimidation operations” against businesses owned by Jews and Negroes in France.
Police said that Jane was a former French volunteer in the wartime “Waffen SS” of Nazi Germany, and a long-standing member of Nazi secret organizations which operated in Algeria when it was a French colony. Another suspect was Claude Carrier, 31, an engineer, who visited Britain on a number of occasions to confer with Colin Jordan, police said.
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