While Civitas was founded in France in 1999, recent years have seen the emergence of Civitas associations or groups in countries such as Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the UK, Poland and even Mexico and Lebanon. Meanwhile, others are currently in the process of being set up, such as in Slovenia, the United States and the Ivory Coast.

Consequently, the representatives of the various Civitas groups decided at a general meeting held on 11 September 2023 to create a common structure called “Civitas International”, with its headquarters outside France, and its president Alain Escada. The aim of this structure is to federate and coordinate the action of the Civitas groups in the various countries, whilst taking into account the specific characteristics of each nation.

A dedicated multilingual website is currently under construction. The question of membership of Civitas International will be the subject of a later communication, whilst various aspects are being finalised.

We will keep you regularly informed of Civitas International’s activities and positions.

On freedom of opinion in France

Author and actor Sébastien Recchia, songwriter and singer Luc Finella, lawyer Virginie de Araújo-Recchia, writer Thierry Marignac, painter and engraver Alain Yves Noblet and writer and philosopher Mehdi Belhaj Kacem are not members of either Soulèvements de la Terre or Civitas France. Despite this, they have signed a manifesto entitled “Non à la dissolution de la liberté d’opinion” (“No to the dissolution of freedom of opinion”) which disapproves of Gérald Darmanin’s dissolution of these two organisations (dissolutions challenged in both cases before the Conseil d’Etat) and warns against the totalitarian temptation that drives the Government.

Here is the text of the manifesto, which can be signed here.

The dissolution proceedings brought against two completely unrelated political movements, Les Soulèvements de la Terre (radical ecology) and Civitas (radical Catholicism), highlight the manifest inability of the management team in power in France to meet the expectations of its citizens on the real issues of the day (inflation, security, ecology, equality, foreign policy etc).

The increasing impossibility of winning support is pushing management to compensate for its growing powerlessness with authoritarian measures. Under the pretext of “democracy”, these aim to restrict or even suppress all expression of opinion.

These measures are directly inspired by the astonishing plan to create an independent government, which, as we know, is currently breaking records for unpopularity, even among its own electorate. These measures are directly inspired by the astonishing “Avia law” (24 June 2020) which has sought to prohibit hatred, when in fact, by a bold reversal of reality, it was itself a thinly disguised manifestation of it. At the time, it was rightly deemed unconstitutional.

The management team currently in power is seeking to reintroduce this unconstitutional law by means of a piecemeal policy, establishing a body of case law that will soon permit all manner of abuses.

It seems that in the case of Soulèvements de la Terre, the Conseil d’État was not mistaken, at least initially. The protest by this movement, which it is not for us to judge here, was aimed at curbing the policy of appropriating resources – especially water, a major issue of the century – by multinationals. This is a policy favoured by the French government, in flagrant contradiction with its “ecological turnaround” announced with great fanfare. Internationally, the explosive situation on the African continent is clear evidence of the rejection which it provokes and its patent failure.

The Civitas movement, which we will judge no further, is committed to traditional values, common sense and ideas that were still shared by a large number of our fellow citizens just a generation ago. In this sense, whatever the contemporary hysteria, it is an integral part of the plurality of opinion. Its vanguard position in the recent fight against COVIDist policies, whose absurdities and abuses are these days making the subject of daily revelations, has not won it the favour of management. What’s more, Civitas has the status of an official political party. Its dissolution would be a first in French history.

In the case against Civitas, a leader of the opposition, who is usually so quick to rise to the defence of “freedoms”, demonstrated the most flagrant indignity by calling for a ban on a peaceful movement made up of a large number of notable people including civil servants, military personnel and police officers.

In the political media operation that followed, the journalists did not cover themselves in glory either. They twisted Civitas’ commitment to the traditionalist church to raise concerns about a patriotic attachment to the land of France, an opposition to the multi-faceted takeover of society by big pharma, which is also ‘ecological’ in many ways, suggesting that this is the equivalent of an absolute threat to democracy.

The process of isolating less than a minute of a speech that lasted almost an hour, transforming a simple joke in the form of a historical reference in a private meeting into a call to the extermination camps, is a falsification of the facts and a violation of the law. gestures, to which we have become all too accustomed. In this case, it is important to note that social networks, so decried when they carry a dissident voice, have been the chosen and ultra-fast instrument of a cabal against Civitas. If the instantaneity of social networks leads to their hysteria, what can be said of a regime for which it is the privileged channel for directing decisions?

This inability to tolerate the slightest contradictory voice outside the political circus is a measure of the weakness of managerial power, which reigns without governing. Not to tolerate as opposition only those who, in this case, elected it. This drift, this slippage, to use the current expression, of power calls for the utmost vigilance and arouses the most justified concerns. However remote it may claim to be, it is becoming increasingly Soviet. We call on the signatories of this petition to formally express our distrust of this regime at work and to support, however different they may be, the two movements threatened with dissolution in their fight for the survival of freedom of expression in a democracy. Otherwise, the professionals of politics and media disinformation will have won an eternal monopoly on speech to the detriment of the sovereign people.

That is why we, ordinary citizens and/or public figures, condemn these arbitrary decisions and call unreservedly and unconditionally for them to be rescinded.

The point here is not to defend Les Soulèvements de la Terre, Civitas, or others, but to take up the cause of freedom of expression, which is, and must remain, a right guaranteed by the Constitution. The prevailing scent of totalitarianism compels us to say ‘no’, because we know that more than ever that this starts with so-called “extremist” groups and then extends the oppression to as many people as possible. History is full of examples, right up to the darkest hours, and we refuse to let that happen again.

That’s why we say ‘no’ to dissolutions and ‘yes’ to freedom of opinion for all.

See the Liberté d’opinion website