The suspects were arrested on June 27 and are being held on charges of "group violence on the grounds of race, ethnicity, or religion," Le Monde reports. Members of the Jeune Garde (Young Guard) are between the ages of 20 and 30.
The 15-year-old victim was approached by a group at Victor-Hugo station on the evening of May 27, who questioned him about his relationship with Palestine, according to the prosecutor's office. The group suspected the boy was involved with the Jewish Defense League, a group that protested an event held by Rima Hassan, a radical left La France Insoumise candidate, and an anti-Israel activist at Paris-Dauphine University a few hours earlier.
The group then beat the teen boy and forced him to chant "Long Live Palestine." The Antifa members filmed the attack and uploaded it to an Instagram account. The video recording has since been deleted, as per Le Canard Enchaine.
The victim suffered physical and psychological injuries, prosecutors said. A medical examination determined it would take the victim at least 12 days to recover, per the assessment.
Tristan Soulard, an attorney for the eight defendants, refuted allegations that his clients were involved in "physical violence," according to publicist24. He claimed that the video recording of the incident was not published to Jeune Garde's official Instagram account, but a separate Antifa account.
"There was an altercation between pro- and anti-Palestinians, which continued all the way into the metro," said Soulard, according to the paper. "After one station, everyone got out."
In a statement published on its Instagram account, Jeune Garde admitted that there was a "brief altercation," but claimed members of the group did not commit "any physical violence."
The arrests were made just several days before the leftist New Popular Front became favored to win the most seats in the French parliament on Sunday after mobilizing against Le Pen's National Rally (NR).
France has since descended into chaos, with riot police being deployed to quash civil unrest, video footage shows.
Journalist Andy Ngo, senior editor of The Post Millennial, reported that leftists gathered at the Place de Republique in Paris and vandalized a national monument. A banner was displayed on the monument reading, "Antifascist Uprising."
Ngo uncovered that the spokesman for the Jeune Garde, Raphael Arnault, was elected as a French Member of Parliament on Sunday. He is part of the far-left La France insoumise party.
