On Friday, Paris Police banned the annual tribute to St. Joan of Arc hosted by the royalist movement Action Française. According to European Conservative, the group announced that it will file an appeal to an administrative judge using a special procedure of référé-liberté which can be made if an administrative decision illegally affects a fundamental right.
The group has held the tribute since 1912 and the only previous times the event has been banned was during the Nazi occupation during World War II, and again in 1990 and 1991 under Minister of the Interior Pierre Joxe.
The ban comes after the Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin requested that any demonstration from "the ultra-Right or the extreme Right be banned" on May 9th. This was in respons to criticism that authorities received after allowing several hundred Neo-Nazi’s march with flags and chant to commemorate the 1994 death of Sébastien Dyzieu on May 6th.
"We will let the courts decide if case-law allows these demonstrations," he told the National assembly.
In a statement the Action Française said, "It is certain that this ban is consistent with Emmanuel Macron's ability to gather. The President of the Republic has decided to flout the fundamental political freedoms of the French people by using the services of a Minister of the Interior who believes he can hide his incompetence in ensuring the safety of the French people by oppressing the patriots."
"Let us note that (Interior Minister) Gérald Darmanin, ridiculed in Mayotte as in all of France (not to mention the international scene), behaves like a little telegrapher from the extreme left with whom he has decided not to get angry, in the hope that she will again be useful to his camp in 2027," they added.
"It is neither Emmanuel Macron nor Gérald Darmanin who will put an end to 111 years of patriotic tribute," the group said. "Action française has obviously decided to appeal to the administrative judge, guarantor of our freedoms."
