France Aims to Shut Down Far-Right Anti-Immigrant Group

French authorities are looking at shutting down a far-right group that has staged several attempts to block migrants from entering the country by crossing the Alps or the Pyrenees mountains, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Tuesday.

Darmanin, who has also led a recent crackdown on extremist Muslim organisations, said he was “outraged by the efforts by Generation Identitaire activists to undermine the republic.”

Last week, around 30 members of Generation Identitaire (Generation Identity) gathered at the Col du Portillon pass on the border of France and Spain in what they called a surveillance operation to “defend Europe.”

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The public prosector in Saint-Gaudens, a town near the Portillon pass, said later Tuesday that he had opened an inquiry into alleged “incitement to racial hatred” by the GI activists.

“The very clear anti-immigration statements on their banner and indeed their very reason this banner was used” justified the inquiry, prosecutor Christophe Amunzateguy told AFP.

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The French government has promised to tighten immigration and asylum laws in response to the huge influx of people trying to reach Europe from Africa, the Middle East and Asia since 2015.