Revealed: the neo-Nazis within the ranks of France’s armed forces

SinceSince the initial publication last week in French of this Mediapart investigation into the existence of neo-Nazis within France’s armed forces, one of those identified has been excluded from the Foreign Legion, while disciplinary measures are pending in other cases.

“Of the fifty individuals who are cited by Mediapart, seven cases of concern had not been detected, and it is therefore an alert that we have taken very seriously,” said French armed forces minister Florence Parly, speaking immediately after Mediapart published the report. 

Questioned afterwards by a Senate foreign affairs, defence and armed forces commission, she commented that “these revelations must prompt us to redouble our vigilance”. Following that hearing, the minister posted a message on social media: “I firmly condemn all expressions of a hateful and barbaric ideology. It does not have its place in our armed forces. Such behaviour is fought against, punished.”

Meanwhile, General François Lecointre, France’s chief of defence staff, in an interview with BFMTV broadcast on Sunday, said that “Mediapart increases the vigilance of the armed forces on an issue that the forces permanently monitor very closely”. He said that of the 50 cases revealed by Mediapart, “there’s a good half [of them] who are the subject of investigations, of disciplinary action and who will be punished”.

In July 2020 Mediapart revealed how a group of around ten French soldiers openly displayed on social media their admiration for Nazi ideology. In this latest investigation, Mediapart identified 50 new cases of French military personnel who overtly associate themselves with the ideals of the Third Reich.

In December 2019, corporal Nikita H., from the French Foreign Legion’s 1st Engineer Regiment, posted on his Instagram account, which has more than a thousand followers, a video featuring scenes of his participation in “Operation Harpie” in French Guyana, which targeted illegal gold hunting. The video shows the corporal, who is of Ukrainian origin, in combat gear, striding through the canopy and crossing rivers in the Amazonian jungle. 

It could have fitted perfectly with media reports on the subject (like here, in Paris Match magazine) which the French army is usually keen to cooperate with – except, that is, for the final scenes of the video. These (see below) show four young black children, visibly unaware of the meaning of their gestures, giving a Nazi salute and repeating “Sieg Heil!”, while awkwardly outstretching their arms, which to all appearances someone has asked them to do. A voice in Russian can be heard mockingly commenting: “Aryans”.

A consultation of the legionnaire’s Instagram account leaves no doubt about his fascination with Nazi ideology. There are pictures of him bare-chested on a beach wearing a swastika on a chain. In another he can be seen in Paris, standing with the Eiffel Tower in the background, juxtaposed with a photo of Adolf Hitler in the exact same spot during the German occupation of the French capital in 1940.

A large number of the cases of Nazi sympathisers in the French army identified in this new investigation are from the ranks of the Foreign Legion, but on the margins are others from the 3rd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment, the 35th Infantry Regiment, and the 132nd Cyno-technical Infantry Regiment.

Most of them are not isolated cases; many are in contact with each other, often featured together in group photos. 

In July 2020, Mediapart revealed the presence of neo-Nazis in regiments that included the 13th battalion of the Mountain Infantry Brigade (13^e bataillon de chasseurs alpins), the 1st Parachute Hussar Regiment and the 2nd Marine Infantry Regiment. In comparison to the numbers of French military personnel, who total 210,000, the around 60 individuals now identified are of course a very small percentage. But Mediapart’s investigation, essentially using open-source information available from publicly accessible social media accounts, is not exhaustive.

This investigation, which is limited to those who support neo-Nazi ideals, to the exclusion of others who may hold other far-right sympathies, contradicts official accounts on the subject. In June 2019, a report by a French parliamentary commission on the presence of radical movements within the public services, led by Members of Parliament Éric Diard and Éric Poulliat, estimated that “the personnel of the armed forces […] appear in our country to be, for the moment, protected from any notable radicalisation”. The rapporteurs based their conclusions on information given to them by the defence intelligence and security agency, the DRSD. According to the latter, the proportion of military personnel suspected of some form of radicalisation, “whether that be Islamic or political”, was 0.05% in the army, and 0.03% in the navy.

The French online magazine specialised in reporting on military and geopolitical affairs, Opex360, calculated that that data meant there were 57 radicalised individuals in the army – which the parliamentary report described as “essentially cases of radical Islam” – and another 11 in the navy.          

Contacted by Mediapart, the French armed forces ministry (the name now given to what was, until 2017, the defence ministry), provided a written reply in which it stated: “The elements raised in the investigation by Mediapart are very serious and have been the subject of a meticulous analysis”. It said that of the list of 50 names of neo-Nazi sympathisers among military personnel which Mediapart submitted to it, “a dozen are no longer linked to the armed forces”, adding: “For around 20 cases cited, our investigations, which are continuing, do not confirm your information of links with the ultra-right. Around ten legionnaires had already been detected during their recruitment. Not being involved in crimes of murder, they were recruited in the framework of the right to be forgotten, specific to inclusion into the Foreign Legion [editor’s note, a tradition of the Legion whereby a recruit’s criminal record, except in the case of a murder conviction, is scrubbed out in France]. They were given a warning and have not, to our knowledge, published anything since their joining.”

“Finally, some of the military personnel cited had already been detected and punished for the events raised,” the statement added. “In total, and at the current stage of our investigations, Mediapart has revealed the existence of six or seven cases which had not yet been picked up on our radars (out of 210,000 military personnel).”

The statement in effect implies that of the 50 cases cited by Mediapart, only a handful are revelations for the ministry. “In these proportions, it should be made clear that such reprehensible behaviour falls into the domain of personal deviation,” the statement added.

That evasive reply, suggesting anecdotal events, is a recurrent reaction by the ministry when questioned on the subject. Mediapart, meanwhile, stands by its information concerning all of the identified personnel. To establish the list of 50 cases of individuals professing neo-Nazi sympathies, we have retained only those whose admiration of the Third Reich was incontestable and illustrated on multiple occasions. If some of the personnel on the list have now left the armed forces, this has been recent. Following questions sent by Mediapart to 47 of the personnel in question (three proved impossible to contact), a number of them have changed the confidentiality settings on their social media accounts, while others have simply closed them down. Mediapart, meanwhile, has kept records of the publications.

Finally, the armed forces ministry said that concerning the “Around ten legionnaires [who] had already been detected” they “have not, to our knowledge, published anything since their joining”. But in reality, for almost all of the military personnel cited in the investigation, their activities were concomitant with their period of service.

Admiration and glorification of the SS

The blindness of the authorities to the problem is all the more difficult to understand given that the personnel identified by Mediapart brazenly demonstrated on social media their fascination for Nazism. A number of them could be seen on social media giving Nazi salutes, while others blanked out their faces on the photos of them doing so, or disguised, to a degree, their gestures. There were others who raised only their forearms.

One of those who gave this Nazi half-salute was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned the number “88” (more on this further below) and a “Totenkopf”, the skull and crossbones – or “death’s head” – emblem of an SS Panzer Division, the so-called Totenkopf Division, mostly made up of former SS concentration camp guards and which was notorious for massacres it committed during WWII.    

Others were pictured in front of flags of the Third Reich which were displayed in museums. At the very least, the photos raise questions about the sentiments of the soldiers who take poses of themselves, sometimes in uniform, in front of Swastikas. One of them, from the Foreign Legion, posted a photo of himself on his Instagram account holding the flag of Ukraine captioned with the words “Ein Volk”, an apparent reference to the Nazi slogan “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” (“One People, One Empire, One Leader”).

In compiling the list of 50 neo-Nazi French military personnel, Mediapart included those photographed giving Nazi salutes and posing in front of Third reich emblems in museums only when they were also accompanied by more explicit references of admiration for Nazism.

There is also the practice of using pseudonyms on social media which are joined with the figure “88”. This is a reference to the eighth letter of the alphabet – H – which, when doubled as “HH”, stands for “Heil Hitler”. Some are more direct in their use of pseudonyms, like one soldier who chose “Valhalla SS”. Another, for his posted biography, chose the phrase in German “Meine Ehre heißt Treue”, meaning “My honour is called loyalty”, and which was a motto used by the SS, whose members wore it inscribed on belt buckles and daggers in allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

Foreign Legion soldier Danilo P. (last name withheld) posted on Instagram pictures of himself showing his tattoos; on his stomach was a Celtic cross, originally a form of Christian cross from the early in the Middle Ages, a version of which is now adopted by white supremacists. On his shoulder featured another tattoo which read “White Pride”. Between his shoulder blades was a tattoo of an eagle rising above a black sun.

The black sun symbol, composed of 12 radial sig runes, is popular with neo-Nazi movements, and in particular those which are mystic and esoteric. It was displayed on the rucksack and manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, the Australian far-right terrorist who shot dead 51 people in two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch in March 2019. It featured on the marble floor of the Wewelsburg castle in Germany, after Heinrich Himmler, chief of the SS and a principal organiser of the Holocaust, acquired it to use the building notably as a school and ceremonial centre for the SS.

Danilo P., who recently left the Foreign Legion, also posted photos of objects kept in his apartment, including a cup and saucer with the emblem “SS”, a figurine of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and a bottle of beer in an effigy of Adolf Hitler. Contacted by Mediapart, Danilo P. declined to comment and forbade the re-publication of his photos.

Some of the military personnel posted photos and videos of flags and other symbols inside their barracks. In a short video shot in December 2019, around ten of them celebrated Christmas in front of a black flag with a Celtic cross. In another photo taken inside a barrack-room a similar flag can be seen along along with a poster of a commemoration of the so-called Acca Larenzia killings in Rome in January 1978, when members of the neo-fascist MSI group were ambushed by gunmen, and which are marked each year by European ultra-right.

Some of the military personnel posted photos and videos of flags and other symbols inside their barracks. In a short video from December 2019, around ten of them celebrated Christmas in front of a black flag with a Celtic cross. In another photo taken inside a barrack-room, a similar flag can be seen along with a poster of a commemoration of the so-called Acca Larenzia killings in Rome in January 1978, when members of the neo-fascist MSI group were ambushed by gunmen, and which are marked each year by European ultra-right.

Last month, Nikita H., the member of the Foreign Legion who filmed the group of children in French Guyana miming Nazi salutes, posted photos of his participation in Operation Barkhane, the ongoing French military intervention against armed jihadist groups in Mali and the wider Sahel region of north-west Africa. Apart from photos of him in sand fatigues with his assault rifle slung across his shoulder, there was also a video of a young black child manifestly forced to do a series of press-ups in the desert (see below). On the sound track can be heard the mocking encouragement of legionnaires, while the cameraman, apparently Nikita H., comments in Ukrainian, and then Russian: “Push, you dirty whore! What were you thinking? That French food is distributed freely?”

The attitude of Nikita H. in the videos of black children in French Guyana and in Mali illustrates the serious problem over the deployment of troops with neo-Nazi sympathies. As racists, these armed men, who represent France, find themselves in situations where they can mistreat, bully and humiliate individuals.

Sergeant Victor G., who graduated from France’s National Active Non-Commissioned Officers’ School, joined the 3rd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment in 2019, and was involved in Operation Barkhane in 2020. One might have imagined that his views had evolved since he once wrote on his Instagram account that he was in Dubai, using a hashtag “at the home of the enemy”, or posted a photo of himself shaking the hand of a man of south-east Asian appearance with the commentary: “Behind their smiles is often hidden their treachery #springroll #free #noodle #rice”. But more recently he posted a photo of a tattoo on his biceps reading “C3G”, for the name of a group of far-right militants based in the French city of Lyon, called “Cigale 3 Grammée”. When pronounced in French, this play on words sounds very similar to “Sieg Heil swastika”.

A number of the 50 military personnel identified here had already, before their recruitment to the army, posted content on social media showing their fascination with Nazi ideology. Yet French armed forces minister Florence Parly, interviewed on French radio station France Info  shortly after Mediapart’s first report last year on neo-Nazi sympathisers within the army, commented that, “One must be humble, there could have been holes in the netting”, meaning those that allowed some of the recruits to escape notice.

“We don’t have the means to follow the publications of our 140,000 [land army] personnel when they express themselves on the internet,” added Parly last summer. “Not all of them mention their military status in their publications, or express themselves under a different identity […] A minority of soldiers express themselves via their personal accounts on social media or on extremist sites without the land army being able to detect this.”

Now, one year later, questioned by Mediapart about the revelations of this latest investigation, the armed forces ministry commented: “The DRSD carries out vast and crucial work in order to prevent any incursion of this type of ideology into the armies. But, as madam the minister of the armed forces has had occasion to say, one must of course remain humble because no system of detection is infallible.”

One soldier boasted he was too 'precious' to be sacked

In her interview with France Info last July, days after Mediapart’s first investigation into neo-Nazi sympathisers within the army, Parly insisted: “We are very attentive to this because they convey an ideology that does not have its place in our armed forces. They are extremists, revisionists […] This must be taken with a great deal of seriousness. That’s what we’re doing and it is why the high command immediately took up the matter. It is not because they are rare cases that we shouldn’t take disciplinary action.” But the firm words were only partially followed up.

On October 21st 2020, the father of a soldier in the mountain infantry who had been identified in the first investigation published last July wrote to Mediapart to complain that his son, who had removed his SS tattoo, was disciplined with 40 days of confinement and, after he was initially due to be demoted for a six-month period, was finally definitively excluded from serving in the armed forces.

Another neo-Nazi sympathiser identified in Mediapart’s first investigation was Teddy M., a non-commissioned officer with the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2^e REP), who had a black sun tattooed on his shoulder, a “Totenkopf” on his forearm and an SS motto on his torso. According to informed sources, he was placed several days in confinement and ordered to cover over one of his tattoos – the others were on his body before he entered the Foreign Legion. But, Mediapart has observed, he is still in the military; in a photo posted on February 1st this year, taken inside the bar at the 2^e REP barracks, he can be seen in the company of Foreign Legion colleagues including two who feature on Mediapart’s list of neo-Nazi sympathisers. According to the informed sources, Teddy M. has boasted that he is too “precious” to be sacked.     

Questioned by Mediapart about the disciplinary action mentioned by Parly, her ministry said that “in July 2020, seven military personnel were already heavily disciplined, of who two were the subject of exclusion”. What was meant by “heavily disciplined” was not detailed.

During her interview with France Info in July last year, Parly said: “We are very careful at the time of their recruitment. There is a service which has the responsibility to ensure that those who join us do not convey this type of ideology.” She was referring to the CNHD, a department of the DRSD, which has at its disposition a tool to sift through social media posts.

But the story of Lucas M. runs contrary to the minister’s confident statement.

In April 2019, Lucas M. posted on Facebook a video of Bilal Hassani, a French singer of Moroccan family origin and who is frequently the target of homophobic insults, with the comment “Zyklon B sa mère” (“Zyklon B his mother”). Zyklon B was a cyanide-based pesticide used in the gas chambers of Nazi concentration camps. On another occasion, he posted a video of a transgender man with the comment: “BurnBurnBurnBurnBurn”. 

In the summer of 2019, he posted on Instagram a photo of himself wearing a T-shirt bearing a tribute to the Charlemagne Division of WWII, a Waffen-SS division made up of French volunteers. In June 2020, he took part in a chat among far-right individuals on mobile messaging and communications platform Telegram, when they shared a video by French neo-Nazi Boris Le Lay, the title of which translates as “Racial war: anti-white fundamentalism, the new religion of the West”.

In December 2019, he prepared his application to join the French army. At the time of concluding its first investigation into neo-Nazis in the French military, Mediapart, aware of the case of Lucas M., contacted him and also the French armed forces ministry to ask whether his application was successful. After both he and the ministry replied that he had not joined the army, he was not included in Mediapart’s report. But because of that exchange, the ministry was necessarily aware of his profile and his neo-Nazi postings, yet Lucas M. was finally recruited into the military.

Since then, he appears in photos on social media in Foreign Legion uniform, sometimes wearing its hallmark green beret, at other times capped with its equally distinctive white kepi. Celebrating his arrival at the Legion, he appeared in a photo sipping a beer with the captioned toast, and which rhymes in French, of “A la race et à Maurras” (“To the race and Maurras”). That was a reference to French essayist, anti-Semite and far-right ideologist Charles Maurras, who was active in the first half of the 20th century. On his neck, Lucas M. bears a tattoo of the Italian fascist motto “Me ne frego” (“I don’t care”).

On March 6th this year Lucas M. posted on Instagram photos of a barbecue party with around 15 of his fellow legionnaires, all in uniform. The caption for one of the photos of the group was “13 DBLE”, a reference to the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion, based at the Larzac plateau in southern France.

In a video of the barbecue, also posted on Instagram (see immediately below), several legionnaires can be seen while a recording of “Cara al sol”, the hymn of the Spanish Falange, a song that still enjoys a nostalgic following by admirers of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, is playing in the background. When Lucas M. notices that he is being filmed, he gives a Nazi salute, causing the person filming him to laugh. Another soldier places his hand on his heart, and Lucas M. takes hold of the colleague’s arm to mime a Nazi salute.

Earlier this week, the south-east France regional daily Le Midi libre, citing colonel Pierre-Henry Aubry, head of the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion, reported that Lucas M. had been excluded from the legion following Mediapart’s revelations.

Created in 1940, the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion was one of the first regiments to be established by the London-based Free French Forces which fought against the Nazis during WWII.

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• The original French version of this report can be found here.