Groupe Union Défense
Groupe Union Défense (originally named Groupe Union Droit), better known as GUD, was a French far-right students' union formed in the 1960s. After a period of inactivity it relaunched in 2022.<ref name="Plottu Macé 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="B.Corson 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Macé Plottu 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The GUD was based in Panthéon-Assas University,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> a law school in Paris.
On 26 June 2024, the French government ordered the dissolution of the GUD.<ref name="auto"/>
IdeologyEdit
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,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> as well as embracing anti-Zionism, anti-Americanism and support for Hafez al-Assad.<ref name="Blast le souffle de l’info 2022"/>
CultureEdit
GUD took as symbol the Celtic cross and the comic black rats (rats noirs).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Some music groups of Rock identitaire français had connections with GUD.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HistoryEdit
GUD was founded in December 1968 under the name Union Droit at Panthéon-Assas University<ref name="Blast le souffle de l’info 2022"/> by Template:Ill, Gérard Longuet,<ref>Nicolas Lebourg, « Une ligne vraiment très droite », Politis, no 1143, semaine du 10 au 16 mars 2011, p. 8-9.</ref> 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.<ref name="Blast le souffle de l’info 2022"/><ref name="Henley 2002">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Members of the GUD participated in the 1969 founding of Ordre Nouveau.<ref name="auto1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
During the 1970s and early 1980s, linked to the Parti des forces nouvelles (PFN), the GUD published the satiric monthly Alternative.<ref name="auto1"/> Members in this period included Alain Orsoni, a Corsican nationalist linked to organised crime and suspected of the murder of Template:Ill.<ref name="Blast le souffle de l’info 2022"/>
On 9 May 1994 GUD member Template:Ill died after clashes between nationalists and riot police.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Jacques Leclercq, « Comité du 9-Mai », Droites conservatrices, nationales et ultras : Dictionnaire 2005-2010, L'Harmattan, p. 124.</ref> Following these event, some French nationalist groups formed an umbrella organization Comité du 9-Mai (C9M) and holdsTemplate:Clarify yearly a commemorative marches in Paris on May 9.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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<ref>Christophe Bourseiller, "Les risques de la spirale", in: Maxime Brunerie/Christian Rol, Une vie ordinaire, Paris: Denoël, 2011, 224 p., p. 8-15.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> after Maxime Brunerie's failed assassination attempt on president Jacques Chirac.<ref>Chirac escapes lone gunman's bullet, BBC</ref>
In 2004, the GUD reformed under the name Template:Ill. Its publication was Le Dissident.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 2017 members of the GUD squatted a building in Lyon and founded political movement Social Bastion.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In late 2022, graffiti appeared in educational institutions in Paris (including the École Normale Supérieure) saying "GUD is back"; a video was released on Template:Ill, 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.<ref name="Blast le souffle de l’info 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
MembersEdit
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 volunteersEdit
Some GUD members have fought in Lebanese Civil War with the Kataeb Party<ref>Not Only Syria? The Phenomenon of Foreign Fighters in a Comparative Perspective, p. 94</ref> in 1976, Croatian War of Independence<ref>James Ciment World Terrorism: An Encyclopedia of Political Violence from Ancient Times to the Post-9/11 Era, p. 234.</ref> in the 1990s and in Burma during Karen conflict.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1985 member of the GUD Jean-Philippe Courrèges was killed in action fighting for the Karen National Liberation Army.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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.<ref>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</ref>
Former member of the GUD Alain Orsoni was member of the FLNC.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
See alsoEdit
- History of far-right movements in France
- Federation of Nationalist Students
- Youth Front (Italy)
- Template:Ill
ReferencesEdit
BibliographyEdit
- Frédéric Chatillon, Thomas Lagane et Jack Marchal (dir.), Les Rats maudits. Histoire des étudiants nationalistes 1965-1995, Éditions des Monts d'Arrée, 1995, Template:ISBN.
- 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, Template:ISBN.