French police are investigating a far-left Antifa extremist after he praised the Nigerian Islamist terror group Boko Haram.
Luc B., a member of the ultra-left “Young Guard Lyon” group, had repeatedly praised Boko Haram on social media before deleting his Instagram account.
Considered a leader of the Antifa movement in Lyon, Luc B. also reportedly mocked the murder of teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded in the street in October for showing his class cartoons of the Islamic prophet Mohammed during a lesson on free speech.
According to a report from the French magazine LyonMag, the local prosecutor has opened an investigation into the far-left extremist for an apology for terrorism.
The magazine also noted that members of the Young Guard were welcomed to an event at the city hall of Lyon’s 1st arrondissement in February of last year on the topic of combatting far-right extremism in the city.
The investigation comes just weeks after a group of seven anarchist Antifa extremists were indicted in Paris for forming a terrorist group with the intent of plotting an attack on police officers or soldiers.
One of the members of the group, a 36-year-old man named Florian D., is said to have travelled to Syria where he fought alongside Kurdish forces during their battles against Islamic State.
Florian D. returned to France in 2018, the same year a group of Antifa militants in Afrin, Syria, declared that they would take up arms against the French state in response to the eviction of anarchist squatters.
Last year in Paris, investigators raided a squat that was believed to be the headquarters of Antifa in Paris and claimed it had been used by the extremist group to manufacture explosive devices.
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