On 8 August, French activist Rémi Filliau was arrested in Paris during a Clown Army action at the headquarters of En Marche (‘Forward!’), the political party of president Emmanuel Macron.
Rémi was one of 15 ‘clowns en marche arrière’ (‘backwards clowns’) who occupied the lobby of the building. The backwards 15 wanted to congratulate ‘the president of the clowns’ on his valiant opposition to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
‘We came to thank him, because the war is a lot better than the PLA [housing benefit]!’ said the chief of staff of the Clown Armies.
A police officer is claiming that Rémi assaulted him, which Rémi disputes and video evidence suggests cannot have happened. Rémi is facing up to €15,000 in fines and a year in prison. His group, the Collective of the Disobedient, is calling him ‘the first victim of “Made in Macron” repression’.