Groupe Union Défense

Groupe Union Défense (originally named Groupe Union Droit), better known as GUD, is a French far-right students' union formed in the 1960s. After a period of inactivity it relaunched in 2022.[1][2][3]

Groupe Union Défense
SuccessorSocial Bastion
Formation1968 (1968)
TypeFar-right students' union
Location

The GUD was based in Panthéon-Assas University,[4][5][6] a law school in Paris.

Ideology
Members of the GUD during demonstration in Lyon in 1989

Formed as far-right, anti-communist youth organization, in the mid-1980s, the GUD turned toward support of the Third Position movements and "national revolutionary" theories,[7] as well as embracing anti-Zionism, anti-Americanism and support for Hafez al-Assad.[8]

Culture

GUD took as symbol the Celtic cross and the comic black rats (rats noirs).[9][10]

Some music groups of Rock identitaire français had connections with GUD.[11][12][13]

History
Members of the GUD during demonstration in Paris in 2012

GUD was founded in December 1968 under the name Union Droit at Panthéon-Assas University[8] by Alain Robert, Gérard Longuet,[14] Gérard Ecorcheville and some members of the political movement Occident. In its early period, it was a reactionary bourgeois student movement, and some of its early members went on to become mainstream conservative politicians, including Gérard Longuet, Hervé Novelli and Alain Madelin.[8][15]

Members of the GUD participated in the 1969 founding of Ordre Nouveau.[16]

During the 1970s and early 1980s, linked to the Parti des forces nouvelles (PFN),the GUD published the satiric monthly Alternative.[17] Members in this period included Alain Orsoni, a Corsican nationalist linked to organised crime and suspected of the murder of Marie-Jeanne Bozzi.[8]

On 9 May 1994 GUD member Sébastien Deyzieu died after clashes between nationalists and riot police.[18][19] Following these event, some French nationalist groups formed an umbrella organization Comité du 9-Mai (C9M) and holds yearly a commemorative marches in Paris on May 9.[20][21]

In 1998, the Group united itself with Jeune Résistance and the Union des cercles résistance, offshoots of Nouvelle Résistance group, under the name Unité Radicale, but it was dissolved[22][23] after Maxime Brunerie's failed assassination attempt on president Jacques Chirac.[24]

In 2004, the GUD reformed under the name Rassemblement étudiant de droite. Its publication was Le Dissident.[25]

In 2017 members of the GUD squatted a building in Lyon and founded political movement Social Bastion.[26][27][28]

In late 2022, graffiti appeared in educational institutions in Paris (including the École Normale Supérieure) saying "GUD is back"; a video was released on Ouest Casual, a Telegram channel used by the far right, commemorating some Greek neo-Nazis; and the GUD slogan “Europe, Youth, Revolution” appeared on stickers in Paris and chants at a right-wing demonstration in Lyon. Its activists were reported to be drawn from far-right trade union La Cocarde Étudiante, the ultra-right group the Zouaves, traditionalist Catholics from Versailles, and football hooligans.[8]

Members

Successive leaders of the GUD were: Alain Robert, Jack Marchal, Jean-François Santacroce, Serge Rep, Philippe Cuignache, Charles-Henri Varaut, Frédéric Chatillon, William Bonnefoy, Benoît Fleury.

Military volunteers

Some GUD members have fought in Lebanese Civil War[29] in 1976, Croatian War of Independence[30] in the 1990s and in Burma during Karen conflict.[31] In 1985 member of the GUD Jean-Philippe Courrèges was killed in action fighting for the Karen National Liberation Army.[32]

GUD members have had links with the Department for Protection and Security, which is the security organization of the far-right political party National Front.[33]

Former member of the GUD Alain Orsoni was member of the FLNC.[34]

See also

References
  1. Plottu, Pierre; Macé, Maxime (7 November 2022). "Des militants d'extrême droite réactivent le GUD à Paris". Libération (in French). Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  2. B.Corson, Equipe (16 November 2022). "GUD, le retour d'une légende brune". POLITIS (in French). Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  3. Macé, Maxime; Plottu, Pierre (25 March 2022). "Brève histoire du GUD, ce groupuscule fascisant dont a fait partie Loïk Le Priol". Libération (in French). Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  4. L'université en Ile-de-France (4) Paris-II Assas, la longue marche vers le centre droit
  5. Avec "Assas Patriote", l'extrême droite tente de reprendre pied à Paris-II Panthéon-Assas
  6. Élections à Assas: le GUD tente de reprendre pied
  7. L’Odyssée des Rats noirs : voyage au coeur du GUD
  8. Blast le souffle de l’info (16 November 2022). "Extrême droite : les rats noirs de retour - Site d'information français d'actualités et d'investigation indépendant". Blast - Le souffle de l’info - Site d’information français d’actualités et d’investigation indépendant (in French). Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  9. El otro Mayo del 68: la contrarrevolución de la rata negra
  10. La rata negra mascota del neofascismo europeo
  11. Une musique groupusculaire : le rock identitaire français
  12. GUD, Génération identitaire, Action française... leurs racines, leurs méthodes
  13. Le Rock Identitaire Français (5) Chapitre III : Les acteurs du RIF : les groupes
  14. Nicolas Lebourg, « Une ligne vraiment très droite », Politis, no 1143, semaine du 10 au 16 mars 2011, p. 8-9.
  15. Henley, Jon (20 July 2002). "France's neo-Nazi breeding ground". the Guardian. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  16. Dossier extrême droite radicale: Groupe Union Défense
  17. Dossier extrême droite radicale: Groupe Union Défense
  18. L'extrême droite radicale tente une sortie sur le social, le 9 mai
  19. Jacques Leclercq, « Comité du 9-Mai », Droites conservatrices, nationales et ultras : Dictionnaire 2005-2010, L'Harmattan, p. 124.
  20. Commemoration Sebastien deyzieu (C9M)
  21. Il y a 25 ans, Sébastien Deyzieu
  22. Christophe Bourseiller, "Les risques de la spirale", in: Maxime Brunerie/Christian Rol, Une vie ordinaire, Paris: Denoël, 2011, 224 p., p. 8-15.
  23. Would-be assassin rooted in hard right
  24. Chirac escapes lone gunman's bullet, BBC
  25. "Du côté obscur de la droite". Archived from the original on 2019-07-31. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
  26. Lyon: le Gud squatte un immeuble pour venir en aide aux Français dans le besoin
  27. A Lyon, le GUD expulsé de son squat
  28. À Lyon, le GUD réquisitionne un bâtiment pour aider les Français
  29. Not Only Syria? The Phenomenon of Foreign Fighters in a Comparative Perspective, p. 94
  30. James Ciment World Terrorism: An Encyclopedia of Political Violence from Ancient Times to the Post-9/11 Era, p. 234.
  31. La Souris rattrapée par le Chat…tillon: quand LSD choisit finalement son camp
  32. C’était un 4 octobre…
  33. Abel Mestre et Caroline Monnot, « Les réseaux du Front national », Sylvain Crépon, Alexandre Dézé, Nonna Mayer, Les Faux-semblants du Front national : sociologie d'un parti politique, Presses de Sciences PoP
  34. Alain Orsoni: seul face à sa peur

Bibliography
  • Frédéric Chatillon, Thomas Lagane et Jack Marchal (dir.), Les Rats maudits. Histoire des étudiants nationalistes 1965-1995, Éditions des Monts d'Arrée, 1995, ISBN 2-911387-00-7.
  • Roger Griffin, Net gains and GUD reactions: patterns of prejudice in a Neo-fascist groupuscule, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 33, n°2, 1999, p. 31-50.
  • Collectif, Bêtes et méchants. – Petite histoire des jeunes fascistes français, Paris, Éditions Reflex, 2002, ISBN 2-914519-01-X.


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