Named for the Greek goddess of retribution, the French group specializes in provocative protests and perpetually blames immigrants and Muslims for sexual violence. Since its creation in 2019, members have regularly infiltrated left-wing protests to shout their own slogans. With her face hidden under a cap and dark glasses, Alice Cordier, 27, walked up central Paris’s Rue Turbigo. In her hands, she held a sign reading “Jordan, faut qu’il se Bardella” – a pun on far-right leader Jordan Bardella’s name, saying he should “go away.” But it was a decoy. The sign’s brown paper wrapping hid another slogan beneath it, which she planned to reveal later. She marched toward the violence she herself would provoke. The head of a security service, hired for the occasion, walked beside her. Together, they joined a crowd of thousands of people who had gathered at Paris’s Place de la République to protest against the far right on the night of Thursday, June 27, 2024. The demonstration had been set up by a group of nonprofit organizations, independent media outlets and the CGT trade union. (…) Cordier made her way to the center of the gathered crowd. She was soon joined by nine other young women, all also carrying signs bearing anti-RN slogans, and surrounded by their bodyguards. It was almost 8 pm. Suddenly, the 10 young women ripped off the paper that covered their placards and revealed their actual slogans: A vote for the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire alliance, they accused, was a vote for radical left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, “convicted of rebellion and provocation,” for French-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan, “summoned for advocating terrorism,” or for Mélenchon’s lieutenant Adrien Quatennens, “convicted of domestic violence.” The women chanted: “You’re not feminists!” (…) Provocative actions, anti-immigrant rhetoric, media presence and building up a brand: Némésis’s members are highly skilled at political communication. Its activists have been honing their methods over the past five years, and today they enjoy a growing audience, with tens of thousands of subscribers to their social media accounts. The group claims to have 200 activists, but its inner circle numbers just a few dozen people.
via lemonde: Némésis, the identitarian activists behind feminist masks