Fifty Antifa groups in France join vast network to ensure chaos in weekend protests
FIRST ON FOX: Some 50 radical Antifa cells in a wider network of nearly 300 groups are mobilizing to ensure this weekend's demonstrations in France devolve into chaos and mayhem, Fox News Digital has learned.
Self-described Antifa groups are working with a sprawling network of communist, socialist, far-left and anti-Israel groups to mobilize on two fronts this weekend: an "anti-fascist village" against conservative leader Marine Le Pen's National Rally in the city of Orléans and nationwide protests called Acte II to replicate last week's violent riots.
A Fox News Digital investigation has mapped 287 groups in France's expanding protest ecosystem, including 50 explicitly Antifa organizations, 27 explicitly communist, socialist, Trotskyist or revolutionary-left organizations, 24 labor unions and an expanding coalition of far-left anti-Israel, migrant-rights, environmental, feminist, transgender and other activist organizations. The demonstrations, which claim to be about youth education, include just 27 student and youth organizations.
The coordination comes amid a wider transnational campaign of mayhem organized by communist, socialist and leftist groups in Greece, Italy, Spain, India and elsewhere.
Fox News Digital has compiled a running who's who of organizations in what has been dubbed "Chaos Inc." and will keep updating the directory.
The size of the mobilization represents a huge expansion from the original 54 organizations identified in last weekend's riots. The number of Acte II actions has also increased to 649 planned protests, as of early Friday morning in Paris, including at 21 train stations, three ports, two oil depots and one refinery.
Scores of pages of planning documents and social media posts analyzed by Fox News Digital reveal that agitators have laid the groundwork for a coordinated campaign with money, logistics and a communications infrastructure behind their efforts.
The fundraising, transportation, youth outreach, ready-made materials and centralized information hub reveal an organized mobilization operation in place days before protesters even reach the streets with expected hammer-and-sickle and Palestinian flags.
A French administrative court reportedly overturned a ban on street protests issued by Paris police, although the order was not made public and it was unclear if it would have applied to other cities which have imposed similar orders.
Already, organizers have begun planning a next-stage Acte III on Oct. 31, a broader strike and blockade mobilization on Nov. 5 and a Europe-wide action on Nov. 20.
In France, the numbers include signatories to two streams: a Ciao Fachos, or "Good-bye Fascists," coalition that will descend on Orléans and the Acte II, or "Action 2," campaign, led by a group called the Yellow Vests that organized last week's mayhem. Organizations have signed onto a roster and list headed to Orléans.
"Macron must leave and make way for the people!" the Acte II organizers declared, calling "Yellow vests, high school students, university students, workers" into "demonstrations, roundabouts and blockades, everywhere in France."
FRANCE'S MACRON BLAMES PROTESTS ON 'ULTRA-LEFT GROUPS WHOSE AIM IS TO BRING DOWN THE REPUBLIC'
Last September, after the murder of conservative leader Charlie Kirk by an alleged leftist gunman, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Soon after, Trump issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, targeting far-left groups. It said the "groups and entities that perpetuate this extremism have created a movement that embraces and elevates violence to achieve policy outcomes, including justifying additional assassinations."
Despite the clear global presence of groups with self-described names of Antifa, former FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress in 2020 that Antifa was "not a group or an organization" but rather "a movement or an ideology."
In the U.S., while they will wave flags that say "ANTIFASCIST," far-left activists don't typically operate under one formal national organization called "Antifa," leading to denials that any "Antifa" organization exists.
In Europe, it's a different story. Activists openly organize under the Antifa name, "antifascist" banners and Antifa flags with emblems of their local chapters, and a Fox News Digital investigation has found a sprawling network mobilizing activists for another weekend of protests.
Last November, the State Department designated four European groups linked to Antifa — Antifa Ost in Germany; the International Revolutionary Front, or Informal Anarchist Federation, in Italy; and Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self Defense in Greece — as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specifically Designated Global Terrorists, accusing them of organizing or carrying out bombings, shootings and other politically motivated attacks.
TRUMP CALLS ANTIFA ‘TERRORIST GROUP,’ FUELING FIGHT OVER FREE SPEECH AND LIMITS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
Worldwide, Antifa chapters have built their movement around a seemingly noble opposition to "fascism," but critics argue that they deploy tactics of threats, intimidation, harassment, violence, destruction and even murder that make them coercive, authoritarian, dangerous and deadly. What's more, parroting the propaganda language of Russia, China and the Islamic Republic of Iran, "fascism" has become a loaded catch-all phrase to describe Western democracies.
For example, late last year, Neville Roy Singham, an American-born communist tech tycoon living in China, took to the stage at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Shanghai for a "Global South" conference and critiqued the alleged "fascism" of the United States.
Days ago, Fox News Digital reported exclusively that an internal State Department assessment warns that antifascist groups could participate in a "potentially more confrontational protest" this weekend that could "expose further security shortcomings and deepen political tensions."
Now, the organizations themselves provide a look inside the infrastructure being assembled on the ground.
On Friday night, a bus is set to leave Marseille at about 9 p.m. local time for Orléans, in a journey organized by "La Riposte Antifasciste Marseille," established in October 2023 with a "strategy of massification of anti-fascism." In its promotion, the pilgrimage leaders tell followers, "Anti-fascism is everyone's business." It's joined by Marseille Unite Communiste Libertaire.
Other organizing materials advertise collective transportation from locations including Paris, Saint-Denis, Stains and Brest.
The logistical preparations provide a more concrete measure of organization than simply finding similar flags or slogans at demonstrations.
On Saturday morning, at 8 a.m., in the city of Bagnolet outside Paris, the Assemblée Antifasciste de Bagnolet, or "Bagnolet Antifascist Assembly" has plans in place to meet at the town hall, Mairie de Bagnolet, on Rue Hoche for a two-hour ride to Orléans. Its online sign-up sheet advertises 50 free seats.
La Marche des Solidarites, or "The March for Solidarity," an online hub, directs supporters in the Paris region to buses leaving from Saturday morning from Place de la République in Saint-Denis and Stains with #NousToutes and Carré Citoyen.
On Instagram, Saint-Denis Antifa, Carre Citoyen and Marche des Solidarites are sending people to a fundraising page on the Solidaire website, where organizers have raised about $13,300 for expenses for the Saturday action, including the "printing of mobilization materials: leaflets, posters, etc." and a "truck/sound system for a large procession of the solidarity march."
The Saint-Denis Antifa also made crêpes last week at the Saint-Denis Hip-Hop Festival to raise money for the protest.
And organizers have centralized the machinery for mobilization online. Adults are facilitating space for high-school students, telling them, "free places are for you."
The Marche des Solidarités online repository on antiracisme-solidarite.org describes itself as a place containing "all the information to mobilize," including "calls, signatories, visuals, etc."
Ciao Fachos has gone further. Its organizing documents call for "tractages, collages, réunions publiques, récoltes de fonds, transports collectifs" — distributing leaflets, putting up posters, holding public meetings, fundraising and organizing collective transportation.
The group also urges activists to prevent National Rally supporters from distributing literature at markets or putting posters on walls.
The network has also advertised Signal channels, much like far-left activists have done in the U.S., to swap information and coordinate logistics.
The schedule is carefully organized with Antifa groups like Loiret Antifasciste, which is promoting a detailed program. The group's own declaration describes the objective as larger than opposing a single National Rally convention.
Building a "mouvement antifasciste," or "antifascist movement," is a "collective responsibility," the organization says, calling for a united political front.
For Saturday, organizers advertise:
On Sunday, Ciao Fachos advertised another demonstration toward CO'Met, the location of the National Rally gathering.
The Association France Palestine Solidarité says its members will participate in a Palestinian contingent during Saturday's demonstration and operate a stand at the antifascist village until 10 p.m. Protest leaders chose the last protest date of Oct. 17 to memorialize a protest on the same day in 1961 when a protest by Algerian "martyrs" turned deadly in Paris.
Organizations include Urgence Palestine Orléans, AGIR POUR LA PALESTINE, Union juive française pour la paix, migrant-rights organizations including FASTI, Droits Devant!!, Coordination Sans-Papiers 75, La Cimade Aix-en-Provence, Tous Réfugiés, GASPROM-ASTI Nantes, ASTI Orléans, the Association des Travailleurs Maghrébins de France and UJFP, the French Jewish Union for Peace, which is promoting the demonstration.
The CGT Paris, the Paris branch of one of France's largest labor confederations, is also organizing transportation to the demonstration and published the Loiret Antifaciste coalition's call for an antifascist movement.
Solidaires 37, the Indre-et-Loire branch of the left-wing labor federation, is organizing pay-what-you-can transportation from Tours.
The coalition lists demonstrate how explicitly antifascist organizations operate inside a considerably larger political coalition.
The Orléans demonstration isn't the only place explicit Antifa organizations are mobilizing Saturday.
Fox News Digital separately identified antifascist groups attached directly to local Acte II demonstrations.
In Angoulême, Action Antifasciste 16, also known as Action AntiFa16, appears as an official collaborator on an Oct. 24 Acte II announcement alongside NPA Charente, Révolution Permanente Angoulême, Maison des Peuples et de la Paix, Fanfare en lutte d'Angoulême and Organisation de Solidarité Trans Angoulême.
In the city of Caen, the "Caen Antifa Squad" appears as a collaborator on another announcement explicitly advertising "ACTE II — 24 OCTOBRE."
The presence of Antifa groups provides a connective point between the nationwide Yellow Vest mobilization and the antifascist ecosystem.
One of the figures attempting to bring the different grievances together is Benjamin Ball, editor of the website coordinating the Yellow Vest action map.
"Our role is to make sure that the social anger aggregates," Ball recently told French media, saying organizers want representatives of different sectors received at the Élysée.
REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: FRANCE BRACES FOR MORE UNREST AFTER PARTS OF PARIS SPUN OUT OF CONTROL
French Antifa activism substantially overlaps with anarchist, communist, anticapitalist and revolutionary-socialist networks whose organizations frequently cooperate in demonstrations and campaigns.
The Oct. 24 coalition illustrates those connections.
Union Communiste Libertaire, a libertarian-communist organization advocating revolutionary political change, has joined the mobilization.
The revolutionary socialist Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste, or NPA, is promoting the Orléans demonstration. Its publication "L'Anticapitaliste" reported that dozens of organizations were mobilizing against the RN congress.
La France Insoumise, the French Communist Party, Union pour la Reconstruction Communiste and Le Poing Levé appear in the wider local coalition.
The coalition also includes labor organizations, environmental activists and student groups, such as Fédération Syndicale Étudiante, a left-wing student union already involved in France's October student revolt, is joining the mobilization.
Extinction Rebellion France is represented through its Île-de-France organization. Its agitators rappelled the Marianne statue and hoisted a vest with an anti-police message, creating the iconic image used for the next phase of activation.
And the coalition includes feminist organizations such as NousToutes, whose current social-media material is promoting transportation to Orléans and mobilization resources.
Organized labor is providing another piece of the mobilization infrastructure.
Along with CGT Paris and Solidaires 37, the expanded roster includes CNT Fédération Éducation, CNT 49, CNT Education 93, SNETAP-FSU, Solidaires 44, Solidaires 35, SUD Protection Sociale 93 and CGT ArianeGroup Issac, among other labor organizations.
VISA 93, part of the Vigilance et Initiatives Syndicales Antifascistes labor-antifascist network, has promoted union transportation for the demonstration.
Meanwhile, as Antifa and other leftist agitators readied for the weekend, French authorities arrested a 34-year-old man, Hodei Docampo Ciarra, this week in the town of Val d'Issoire (Haute-Vienne). Police suspect him of being one of the rioters who devastated City Hall in Limoges, torching the building.
French police said he was allegedly involved in the "ultra-left."
They arrested the man, 34, at about 6:15 a.m. as he got out of bed at his parents' home.