Six of the 200 alt-left Antifa extremists arrested on May 1st in Paris were presented before a court this week, with several of the alleged rioters coming from upper-middle class backgrounds.
Around 1,200 masked, alt-left Antifa militants took part in the rioting in Paris earlier this month, which saw several shops heavily vandalised and police officers attacked with firebombs.
Six of the 200 or so extremists arrested were brought to a Paris court this week on charges related to the rioting, allowing the public to see the backgrounds of the people who attempt to remain anonymous through their black bloc tactics, Franceinfo reports.
Several of the arrested extremists have been revealed to have privileged backgrounds, including one 29-year-old who earns as much as 4,200 euros per month as a consultant, and another who is the son of a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, the country’s largest governmental research organisation.
PICTURES: Paris Burns as May Day Protests Turn to Riots https://t.co/FDvwxbc9rx
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A young woman was also among the alt-left extremists, and admitted to lying about her identity to the police who arrested her, claiming that her name was Anne and that she was from Sweden when her name was actually Andrea and she is French.
The son of the researcher also admitted to giving a fake name to the police, and both were handed four weeks of pre-trial detention by the presiding judge as a result.
The profile of alt-left Antifa extremists often counters the group’s “working class” claims and, more often than not, according to Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the majority are men who live with their parents and do not have girlfriends.
Despite their often upper-middle-class origins, alt-left extremists have become more radical across Europe in recent months.
In France, several Antifa members who travelled to northern Syria recently threatened to return to fight the French state, targetting government officials, police, and intelligence officers while posing in masks with automatic rifles.
The group also said they would sabotage infrastructure in their war against the French state, in response to a series of evictions of alt-left activists occupying universities and other buildings.
In Germany, Antifa extremists injured hundreds of police at last year’s Hamburg G20 summit, and two members of the group were found in possession of a mobile bomb factory and chemicals used to make explosives recently.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com
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