Arnaud Gouillon(BETAPHOTO/MINISTARSTVO SPOLJNIH POSLOVA SRBIJE/DS)
The Bureau for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region has earmarked around 4.5 million dinars for projects of Serb associations in France during the previous three years, but the events that were being organized and digital platform activities testify to the open support of some of these organizations to right-wing and xenophobic figures, the Vojvodina Investigative and Analytical Center (VOICE) reported on Feb. 16.
What particularly stands out is the presence of individuals connected with the extremist movement from France, the "Bloc identitaire," one of the members of which was the current acting director of the Bureau for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region, Arnaud Gouillon.
According to VOICE, the Gouillon brothers, Arnaud and Bertrand, as well as Nikola Mirkovic and Philippe Vardon, a neo-Nazi and former member of the communications team of far right politician Marine Le Pen, are considered to be the founders and first members of the "Solidarity for Kosovo" foundation, which has organized aid deliveries from the Serb diaspora in France to the Serbs in Kosovo.
"Modern extremist organizations use humanitarian drives to rebrand," sociologist Milos Perovic told VOICE. "Acts of charity are an excellent instrument for that, because the broad public's perception about someone who helps other people will not catalogue it in the drawer of fascism. Naturally, right-wing humanitarianism is notably discriminatory because it is always intended for a certain racial, ethnic or national group," Perovic explained in the interview to VOICE.
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