Former neo-Nazi gendarme, member of the “Waffenkraft project” group, sentenced on appeal to 18 years in prison for “terrorism”

L’homme a été condamné, en première instance et en appel à 18 ans de prison pour association de malfaiteurs terroriste criminelle. MAXPPP – Bruno Levesque

Friday, September 20, 2024, Alexandre Gilet, a former gendarme belonging to the neo-Nazi movement, was sentenced to 18 years of criminal imprisonment for terrorist projects.

Alexandre Gilet, a former volunteer gendarme from Grenoble, was sentenced at the Paris Assize Court on appeal on Friday, September 20, to 18 years of criminal imprisonment for terrorist criminal association, AFP learned from a judicial source on Monday, September 23. The man is banned from any public employment for ten years. A seven-year socio-judicial follow-up was also ordered.

The former gendarme had received the same sentence at first instance in June 2023. However, his sentence was accompanied at the time by a security period, which has since been withdrawn, as he had requested when he appealed. During this trial, the first for far-right terrorism to be tried before the assizes, three other men had been convicted. Their sentences were lighter, up to five years in prison, two of which were firm.

They were accused of having prepared terrorist actions against mosques, political figures such as the former presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF).

The "Waffenkraft Project"

The four men were part of a Discord group created in 2017, called "Waffenkraft Project" (Firepower). The group, which consisted of about 20 people, was mainly used to make threats and hate speech against foreigners, institutions, homosexuals and Jews. In July 2018, they met in a forest near Tours, accompanied by a 14-year-old schoolboy, for a clandestine shooting session.

“Traumatized” by the 2015 attacks

In 2017, Alexandre Gilet wrote a text entitled “Guerrilla tactics and operations” described at first instance as a “manifesto de l'acte terroriste” written "in the style of far-right mass murderers".

Aged 22 at the time of the events, the former policeman declared before the assize court that at the time, he was "in a process of radicalization following the 2015 attacks" which had "disturbed and traumatized him". The man also clarified that he never really intended to do so.