On the morning of November 21, the bronze Victor Hugo who has been enthroned for twenty years on the Esplanade des Droits de l’homme, in Besançon, woke up with his face stained with white paint. No link with the actions carried out in recent months by environmental activists to warn regarding climate change: a sign, advocating the « White Power » and marked with a double Celtic cross, hanging from the hands of the work of the Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow (1935-2016), left little doubt regarding the nature of the claims.
Especially following a controversy lasting several days with strong racist, identity and nationalist overtones on social networks regarding the restoration of the statue: the face of the romantic author became too black for their taste. “A media frenzy over nothing since the restoration was still not finished”still regrets Béatrice Soulé, widow and agent of Ousmane Sow.
The barely known degradation, the “Western Casual” Telegram networkrelay of neo-Nazi and supremacist groups in Europe, congratulated “local nationalists” for giving back to Victor Hugo “a beautiful white color, very French, very Besançon, very XIXe century “.
Two days later, two young people were arrested. A 20-year-old student, confused by the surveillance cameras, admits having been there to photograph his companion, author of the sign and the spray paint: Théo Giacone, 22 years old. Placed in police custody, the latter confesses. The two young people are judged, on December 26, for “serious damage, in a meeting, to the detriment of a good of public utility, and with a racist purpose”.
The Besançon prosecutor, Etienne Manteaux, carried out a personality investigation before the trial, following searches that did not bring to light any “sign of the beginning of violent radicalization”. Asked, Théo Giacone does not wish to answer before his trial “for a youthful mistake” : “My goal is not to publicize the thing more than it is, and avoid a political trial. »
Suspected of belonging to an ultranationalist group
Unknown to justice, because never condemned, the student is not really one of the police services. “It wasn’t really a big surprise to learn that it was him, the statueconfirms an official. He was one of the most famous individuals among those followed for ultra-right violence. »
Suspected of belonging to the Vandal Besak (VDL BSK), an ultranationalist group created in Besançon in 2021, whose logo sticker he has several times displayed, Théo Giacone had already used the codes of white supremacism. In 2019, he showed up on Facebook disguised as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, his arm raised towards the lens. Hood : “just a box” ; Nazi salute: “a simple outstretched hand”will he defend himself in The Republican East.
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