Published on 06/10/2024 11:08
Video length: 3 min
“Sensitive matters”. Over the mystery of the drowned people of La Deûle hangs the shadow of the Lille extreme right “Sensitive Affairs”. Over the mystery of the drowned people of La Deûle looms the shadow of the Lille extreme right (SENSITIVE AFFAIRS / FRANCE 2)
Could the far right have been involved in the unexplained disappearances which devastated the city of Lille in the 2010s? In this extract from an issue of “Sensitive Affairs” devoted to the “Mystery of the drowned people of La Deûle”, here is how the involuntary revelations of a member of the identity movement brought the investigation back to life.
It was around fifteen years ago, in Lille. In the student town, nightlife is no longer the same, since a succession of mysterious drownings in the Deûle. In less than a year (between October 2010 and September 2011), the bodies of four young men were recovered there. What happened to John Ani, Thomas Ducroo, Jean Mériadec Le Tarnec, Lloyd Andrieu, who disappeared after partying with friends?
Investigators are leaning towards accidental drownings after excessive consumption of alcohol and drugs for some. But the city is buzzing with rumors: what if these were homophobic crimes? John Ani was gay; Thomas Ducroo was not, but on the evening of his disappearance, he was leaving a gay bar.
In a disturbing coincidence, the bodies were found near an emblematic meeting place of the gay community: the Vauban garden, which adjoins the Deûle canal. In the area, homophobic attacks were not rare, recalls journalist Tomas Statius, author of The Dead of La Deûle, an investigation in the North (JC Lattès, 2021). However, the police will not pursue this lead, which they consider unrealistic.
The investigations get bogged down, but the macabre series resumes very quickly. On November 23, 2011, a fifth body was recovered: that of Hervé Rybarczyk, a 42-year-old guitarist who had given no sign of life after the last concert of his punk-rock group, twelve days earlier. The musician was being treated for addictions and had just lost his brother and a friend; It doesn’t take much for the police to conclude it was suicide and close the case.
However, it is this affair which will lead to another avenue, which Tomas Statius investigated: that of the Lille extreme right. At the time of these disappearances, local neo-Nazis liked to reign in terror in “Lille by night”. Their main targets: anti-fascist activists and homosexuals…
In January 2015, the affair will be shed new light with the interception of the confidences of a far-right skinhead imprisoned for violence. He would have been involved in a murder in Lille, he tells his girlfriend on the phone, in which one of his friends would also be involved. This one, a certain Yohan Mutte, East “one of the most visible figures of a gang of skinheads who act in the streets of Lille”, specifies Tomas Statius. The individual is a member of the JNR, the Revolutionary Nationalist Youth, the security service of the small group Troisième Voie. And he was already convicted in 2013 for violence in a gay bar.
The investigation then turns towards this avenue. She was able to establish that Yohan Mutte and two of his acolytes did indeed attack Hervé Rybarczyk that evening on the banks of the Deûle. They deny being responsible for his death, but the body of evidence is sufficient for them to be indicted and placed in pre-trial detention in April 2017. Could the other victims also have crossed their path? The investigations, closed without further action in 2014, have been reopened.
Wiretapping is carried out by the gendarmes at the home of a member of the group. They make it appear, explains Tomas Statius, that “the gang formed around Yohan Mutte and other skinhead activists from the north of France attacked homosexuals quite frequently in the Vauban garden.” Sometimes, according to them, “up to once a week.” But no evidence to link them to the other drownings in La Deûle will be found… In April 2018, the three men were released on parole, but they remained indicted.
Excerpt from “The mystery of the drowned people of La Deûle”, to be seen on October 6, 2024 in “Sensitive Affairs (New window)”, a co-production of France Télévisions, France Inter and INA, adapted from a France Inter broadcast.
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