Damien Rieu

Damien Rieu (born 27 August 1989) is a French far-right activist, political communicator, and political consultant.

He became active as a teenager in the Front national de la jeunesse (FNJ), then within the Bloc identitaire, and in 2012 co-founded its youth wing Generation Identity, of which he became the spokesperson. After working for several far-right elected representatives, notably Marion Maréchal, he stood as a National Rally (RN) candidate in the 2021 departmental elections. In 2022, he joined Éric Zemmour's presidential campaign and subsequently the Reconquête party, becoming its spokesperson and vice-president, before becoming Maréchal's parliamentary assistant in the European Parliament.

He advocates remigration and supports the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. His communication strategy, centred on social media, has led to him being convicted on several occasions for defamation and cyberbullying.

Biography Early life Damien Lefèvre was born on 27 August 1989 in Lyon. He grew up there before his family moved to Villeurbanne. His father allegedly served as treasurer of a local chapter of the French Communist Party. He says he was initially involved in left-wing politics, wearing t-shirts bearing Che Guevara's image and participating in protests against the National Front, before adopting anti-immigration views as a teenager. According to his own account, while taking part in an FNJ campaign tour, an attack targeted the activists present. Police allegedly contacted his father to come pick him up, and his father subsequently kicked him out of the family home after discovering his involvement. Rieu then left the FNJ, which he considered insufficiently active and unsupportive of him during this episode, and joined Rebeyne, the Lyon-based youth wing of the Bloc identitaire. In 2021, he targeted a 2.5 million-euro grant awarded by the city of Strasbourg to the Eyyûb Sultan mosque, which has ties to the Turkish organisation Millî Görüş, amplifying the story with Fdesouche under accusations of "Islamo-clientelism". The Interior Minister subsequently announced that the government would refer the matter to the administrative courts to block the project, on the grounds that the mosque had not signed the . That same year, he took part in occupying the roof of the construction site, where a banner reading "732, Génération identitaire" was unfurled, referencing the Battle of Tours. In 2020, Rieu was acquitted on appeal due to a procedural error. In 2013, he was fined, along with 18 other Generation Identity activists, after climbing the wall of the Socialist Party headquarters, where they installed a banner reading "Hollande démission" ("Hollande resign") during a La Manif pour tous march. Rieu, Generation Identity spokesperson Romain Espino, and a third activist were convicted at first instance in 2019 and sentenced to six months' imprisonment, a €2,000 fine and five years' loss of civic rights for these actions; the Generation Identity association itself was fined €75,000. On appeal in 2020, Generation Identity and its activists were acquitted.

In 2013, alongside a French delegation composed largely of figures from the radical far right, Rieu took part in the founding mission of the association (SOSCO), an NGO defending Christians in the Middle East with close ties to Bashar al-Assad's regime. He also carried out missions for the organisation in Egypt and Iraq, including in the Christian town of Bakhdida, which he left only days before it fell to the Islamic State in August 2014. and digital communications manager for Marion Maréchal. In this role, he initially worked remotely, and has said he only grew closer to her during the campaign for the 2015 French regional elections. This relationship led, from spring 2016, to a paid position with the Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, attached to the National Front group she chaired. He was defeated in the second round by the left-wing pair Christophe Boulogne and Valérie Kumm, who took 44.94% of the vote.

In 2022, he announced his support for Éric Zemmour's presidential campaign. He explained his departure from the National Rally by pointing to what he saw as the party's declining momentum, arguing it was no longer mobilising either voters or activists. Political scientist Jean-Yves Camus, however, suggested that Rieu's move to Zemmour's party, Reconquête, could be a career move, as the party offered more available positions than the National Rally. In 2024, he was placed twelfth on the Reconquête list for the 2024 European Parliament election in France, led by Marion Maréchal. He subsequently became her parliamentary assistant at the European Parliament.

Political positions Damien Rieu describes himself as an "Indigenous" person of France and Europe, engaged in a struggle for the survival of his identity, which he says is threatened by what he calls a "genocide by replacement". he has called for the return to their countries of origin of "millions upon millions of immigrants" whom he accuses of causing this so-called "population substitution". Rieu has also claimed involvement in online smear campaigns targeting candidates in the 2017 French presidential election, who were referred to on social media by nicknames insinuating ties to Islam. Among his other actions, he cites the cancellation of a concert by rapper Médine at the Bataclan and prosecution for incitement to racial hatred against an imam in Toulouse. Political scientist has described Rieu as an "excellent propagandist". He was acquitted in 2023.

In 2017, Rieu leaked a video on Twitter in which a journalist criticised Marion Maréchal, and subsequently published her phone number. The journalist was then subjected to a campaign of cyberbullying, racist insults and malicious calls. In 2024, he was sentenced to an eight-month suspended prison sentence and fined 4,000 euros.

In 2021, Xavier Bertrand brought a criminal complaint, joining the proceedings as a civil party, against Rieu after he shared a leaflet on Twitter during the regional election campaign, which, amongst other things, accused the regional president of promoting political Islam in his regional policy. In 2022, the court ruled that the public prosecution had lapsed due to the expiry of the limitation period. However, the court dismissed the defence's plea that the complaint was invalid.

In 2025, Rieu was convicted of defamation against Patrick Karam. In 2026, he was convicted of defamation against Karam a second time, and was fined 1,000 euros, ordered to pay 2,000 euros in damages for moral injury, and 3,000 euros in legal costs. The case stemmed from 2024 remarks in which Rieu accused Karam of supporting Mohammed Henniche, a former rector of a mosque in Pantin, whom Rieu holds partly responsible for the murder of Samuel Paty. The court found he could not claim good faith given his lack of caution in making the statements and his personal animosity toward the plaintiff.