In France, on January 17, the trial of a group of friends of far-right views, whose members are suspected of preparing violent actions, including an assassination attempt on President Emmanuel Macron in 2018, begins.

 This is reported by BFMTV.

 The accused are 11 men and two women, they are considered an organized criminal group. The coup was discussed in autumn 2018, when Macron was due to make a series of visits to the east of the country to mark the 100th anniversary of the first armistice that marked the end of the First World War. At that time, "yellow vest" protests continued in the country, which were joined by people of various views who were dissatisfied with the government.

 According to law enforcement officers, one of the group's members, Mikael Iber, said during one of their meetings that he was going to use a gun and then a knife against the president. After his arrest, he admitted that he had indeed said this. 62-year-old Jean-Paul Bouillet allegedly proposed the idea of ​​using a ceramic knife, which is the most difficult to detect with metal detectors. At that time, Bouye aggressively criticized the government in social networks. Among other things, he wrote in October 2018 that "you need to act like a predator and destroy those who want to prey on you. And this is the case with this clown."

 Bouillet and three other men were arrested on November 6, 2018, in the Moselle department in eastern France, when they gathered at the home of one of them. The detainees have admitted that they did discuss the idea of ​​killing Macron, but insist that nothing real was planned. Later, they began to detain other people.

 According to the information of the law enforcement officers, at the meetings the members of the group often dressed in military uniforms, took pictures behind the burning of EU flags, fantasized about a coup involving "500 Russian soldiers to storm the Elysee Palace", kidnapping of deputies, actions of intimidation near mosques because of "fear.

 The lawyers of the accused argue that, despite the words, there were no real steps to implement the plan and there is no reason to consider them a terrorist group, because not all the detainees know each other.