Neo-Nazi and Far-Right Vandalism Spreads in Côtes d’Armor: Investigation Opened into Recent Attacks on Memorials and Public Buildings

In mid-July, the Saint-Brieuc prosecutor’s office opened an investigation the day after the discovery of anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi inscriptions on a memorial located in Ploeuc-L’Hermitage.

An investigation was opened after the discovery this Saturday of far-right inscriptions on the town hall and a medical center of a commune in the Côtes d’Armor, according to the gendarmerie.

On either side of the entrance to the new town of Guerlédan (formerly Mûr-de-Bretagne and Saint-Guen), a Celtic cross as well as a rallying symbol of the far right have been tagged, according to pictures posted by The Telegram.

The commune’s medical center, a new building, was also tagged with slogans such as “Work, family, fatherland”, “Vive le marshal” or “European brotherhood” (“European brotherhood”), according to other photos . According to the organization’s website, it “was founded in 2014 by a group of European nationalists who care about the future of their land”.

On one of these graffiti, we can read: “support for Red Angers”, in reference to a far-right group (Right-wing Student Rally) located in Maine-et-Loire and four members of which appeared before the justice this Thursday in Angers, three having been acquitted.

“Condemn without reservation”

These degradations took place a few days after a ceremony in memory of resistance fighters and civilians killed in Mûr-de-Bretagne during the withdrawal of Hitler’s army in August 1944.

In a press release, the Secretary of State for the Sea, Hervé Berville, former deputy for Côtes d’Armor, condemned “with the greatest firmness the abject neo-Nazi degradations committed” in Guerlédan.

“Whether they take place on social networks, in places of memory or on public buildings, we must refuse to allow these repeated insults to the history that constitutes our republican identity to divide us and we must continue to condemn them without reservation”, continued Hervé Berville.

The Secretary of State also notes that “these heinous acts occur only a few weeks after the desecration by anti-Semitic tags of the Butte-Rouge memorial located a few kilometers away”.

In mid-July, the Saint-Brieuc prosecutor’s office opened an investigation the day after the discovery of anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi inscriptions on this memorial located in Ploeuc-L’Hermitage (Côtes-d’Armor) and dedicated to 55 people executed on this site by the Nazis in 1944.