The wording had already been approved - “No way Aya, this is Paris, not Kinshasa!” - when Benjamin alerted Antoine to a slight problem. “She’s, er, Malian, not Congolese…” he pointed out. His accomplice was crestfallen: unlike Kinshasa , the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bamako, the capital of Mali, does not rhyme with Aya. So Benjamin sought to reassure him: “But we can leave it: she’s black, isn't she!”
Benjamin had been passing on what another friend, Martin, had already told him in a message: “Kinshasa, that’s Congo. But, well, it’s Africa, innit. Might be a bit odd, though.” To which Benjamin had replied: “Anyway we’re racist so we don’t care.” Martin’s response: “LOL, fair point.”
Together with ten other members of the extreme-right group Les Natifs, Antoine Gongora, Martin Escard and Benjamin Pamiseux will have to answer for these remarks - and many others - in the 17th chamber of the Paris criminal court on June 4th. They face charges of “public abuse on account of perceived origin, ethnicity, race or religion and public incitement to discrimination on account of perceived origin, ethnicity, race or religion”.
All of the accused benefit from the presumption of innocence. Those named in this article were all contacted; none responded to Mediapart's questions.
On March 9th 2024, after it was reported that French singer Aya Nakamura might take part in the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Paris that July, Les Natifs posted a photo on a social media account showing a banner held by around ten of their members on the banks of the River Seine. The banner read: “There's no way Aya, this is Paris, not Bamako market!”. The phrase “There's no way” was a reference to lyrics from her hit song 'Djadja', while Bamako is the capital of Mali where the singer was born.
As revealed by Mediapart and news website StreetPress, the investigation led by France's anti-hate crime unit, the Office Central de Lutte contre les Crimes de Haine et la Haine en Ligne (OCLCH), not only identified the men and women holding the banner, but also highlighted their “intent to stigmatise Aya Nakamura not for her culture but for her African origin”.
As soon as the case was referred to them, detectives at the OCLCH set out to establish where the banner had been displayed. The answer was Place Louis-Aragon, on the Seine island of Île Saint-Louis; and the photograph had been taken on March 8th, at around 7:25pm. Officers then visited the area to locate all nearby CCTV cameras from which footage could be requested. This enabled them to retrace the movements of the 14 men and three women who were involved, both before and after the racist banner was unveiled.
Thanks to “communications with a specialist service”, which provided a list of 26 suspected members of Les Natifs, the investigators simply had to match the faces to the suspects. In some cases, members of Les Natifs even helped with this, albeit unwittingly. One was the member who led the banner action and who, three minutes later, paid for drinks with his bank card in a bar “right next to the scene”.
Another was the group member whose Velcro trainers, visible beneath the banner, had caused a stir online and which were later found during a search of her home.
And then there was Martin Escard, who was arrested four days later in connection with a separate case (re-establishing the dissolved far-right group Génération Identitaire), and in whose home the banner targeting Aya Nakamura was recovered.
Les Natifs’ own social media posts proved equally useful. While in custody, Antoine Gongora, a legal officer at La Poste, the French post office, insisted he had never joined Les Natifs, despite the many videos showing him as the group’s spokesperson.
The investigation also shed light on the group’s internal workings. A 20-year-old student who distanced himself from the group just in time - and who will not be prosecuted - described “last-minute meetings” with around 100 activists in the basements or upstairs rooms of various bars, “leaders” using false names, Telegram channels “sorted by each person’s arrival” within the group and according to the level of trust they were granted.
These precautions did not withstand the forensic analysis of certain key members’ phones. For example, detectives found videos of a party where Les Natifs chanted “Ausländer raus”, or “Foreigners out” in German.
More crucially, preparations for the “Aya Operation” confirmed intelligence services’ suspicions: that Édouard Michaud, a senior figure in the banned group Génération Identitaire, was the head of Les Natifs. According to the Paris prosecutor's office, he was the person “from whom those carrying the banner awaited approval and instructions”.
Group leader Michaud and spokesperson Gongora, who came up with the banner idea, were not present on the night of the incident. They had delegated the task. But they were quick to take control again once the row erupted. “We were careless with the slogan, and I share responsibility for giving it the green light,” admitted Édouard Michaud. “We’ll have to be squeaky clean now, and hope we don’t suffer too much.”
On hearing a judicial investigation had begun into the incident, Antoine Gongora tried to reassure fellow members. “No worries, we had already seen it coming and contacted our solicitor. To the activists who were present, we do nonetheless ask that you make sure there’s nothing incriminating at home or on your phones,” he said.
“We must keep quiet while in custody,” Michaud added.
Apart from that, I’m also a parliamentary assistant to three RN MPs at the National Assembly.
Even so, the investigation did not deter them from showing evidence, once again, of their racism. In a Telegram chat, one Les Natifs member noted that “loads of Africans […] are commenting.” Another laughed: “It's good that they feel involved.”
And while drafting a press release, Les Natifs debated what style of music Aya Nakamura performs. One suggested: “It’s the musical genre, as recognised by France Inter [editor's note, a public radio station], of Negro Pop!” This sparked laughter and agreement from the rest.
Meanwhile, buoyed by their initial progress, the anti-hate crime unit carried out a second round of questioning in early February, targeting anyone involved in planning, carrying out or publicising the action.
The 14 people duly summonsed turned up without their phones and exercised their right to remain silent. Among them, as Mediapart had previously revealed, was a sister of Marc de Cacqueray-Valménier, a prominent figure in France’s neo-Nazi scene. Also present was Capucine Colombo, who had described herself on a private Telegram channel for the group as follows: “I joined Les Natifs in October, because I'm really into the identity side of things. I also help with communications (hope you like it ;)). Apart from that, I’m also a parliamentary assistant to three RN MPs at the National Assembly.”
At the time, the 21-year-old communications officer was indeed working for the far-right Rassemblement National or 'RN' MPs Caroline Colombier, Gisèle Lelouis and Monique Griseti. She has not done so since March. The three MPs did not respond to our questions, so the reasons for her departure are not known. All that is known is that it came a month after her time in custody and the issue of her summons for trial over the banner. By contrast, when Capucine Colombo was exposed by StreetPress and Mediapart over an anti-abortion article and inflammatory remarks, it had no impact on her job.
According to the findings of detectives in the current investigation, Colombo bought the white sheet used for the banner, helped prepare it, and took part in the group’s communications afterwards. During nearly two hours of questioning, she kept giving the same response: “No comment.”
Contacted by Mediapart, she, like her alleged accomplices, did not respond.
First questioned in July 2024 and seemingly not yet briefed by the group’s lawyers, another female member of the group made no effort to hide her politics. Constance, a student, who declared herself “naturally” a supporter of the RN, is suspected of having carried the banner and written one of Les Natifs’ statements. She, too, benefits from a presumption of innocence.
“I don’t see anything racist about the banner,” she told police, volunteering her own analysis of different forms of immigration: “One non-European and one European. For me, a woman fleeing war in Ukraine with her children who wants to take refuge in France for six months is fine. A non-European family wanting to settle in France long-term and replace the population and behaving badly, that I find troubling. So yes, that kind of immigration bothers me a bit.”
She railed against “hatred in society”, citing as an example “calls to kill those who voted RN or whites”. A fan of French singer Mylène Farmer, she said she was shocked by Aya Nakamura’s outfits and the fact that she is “always half-naked”. She seemed unaware that Mylène Farmer has caused controversy by appearing undressed or fully-nude in her videos.
Les Natifs are not immune to such contradictions. In one of his rare responses during questioning, Antoine Gongora said he would have preferred Céline Dion to sing instead of Aya Nakamura at the Olympics, forgetting the former is Canadian while the latter is French.
It could be, however, that nudity or nationality are not the real reasons behind the rejection of Aya Nakamura.
Constance again accused the singer of using “certain African words” in her lyrics. “That’s not our identity. It’s got no place representing France at the Olympic Games […]. Aya Nakamura is from an immigrant background, so she’s not native. I’d have preferred someone who’s been here longer.”
In its legal complaint against the banner, the anti-racist body SOS Racisme, through its president Dominique Sopo, targeted an act “whose aim […] was to claim that Aya Nakamura - despite being a French artist - had no legitimacy to represent France, as reference was made to her Malian origins, seen by the far right as something which disqualified her.”
He had no idea just how right he was.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- The original French version of this report can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter