FRANCE:"WATCH the Tv This Sunday, i will be the star...Death to zog,88!"Mr Maxime Brunerie, a 25-year-old Paris student, posted that message on a British neo-nazi Web site last Saturday afternoon, a day before he pulled out a .22 rifle at the annual Bastille Day parade and tried to gun down French President Jacques Chirac.
It may now become evidence against him if psychiatrists conclude he acted with premeditation when he fired that shot, a theory prosecutors seem to favour after police first said he appeared to be deranged.
Mr Brunerie spent Monday night under police guard at a mental hospital outside Paris while the public prosecutor began a judicial inquiry against him for attempted murder and collected evidence that might prove he was sane and should face trial.
"The person concerned declared the purpose of his act was to commit suicide and make people talk about him," deputy Paris prosecutor Mr Francois Cordier told journalists on Monday evening.
"According to one of his acquaintances, he was attracted to North American movements advocating white supremacy and by the English movement Combat 18," he said.
Investigators have established that Mr Brunerie bought his rifle on July 6th and had taken shooting practice in Burgundy. His parents, with whom he still lived, arrived home from vacation in Spain on Monday evening and were due to be questioned soon.
Commenting on reports that Mr Brunerie explained his motives to police logically, Paris psychiatrist Mr Samuel Lepastier said he would most probably not qualify as insane under French law.
"The would-be killer premeditated his act . . . he announced it," Mr Lepastier told LCI television. "This is an act of logic - crazy logic, but logic all the same."
Mr Brunerie's message, appearing under the name Maxime, was posted on the website of the British neo-nazi group Combat 18. The number 18, signifying the first and eighth letters of the alphabet, stands for AH, or Adolf Hitler.
The motto "death to zog,88!" is also classic neo-Nazi code.
The acronym "zog" stands for Zionist occupied government, reflecting their view that Jews control "most of the white nations on this planet", as the Combat 18 website explains.
The number 88 refers to "HH" or "Heil Hitler." The website, emblazoned with Nazi swastikas and the motto "Blood and Honour", carried several news reports yesterday about the assassination bid and messages supporting Mr Brunerie.
Unité Radicale, an extreme-right French umbrella group including the Union Defence Group that police said Mr Brunerie belonged to, issued a statement on Monday offering "camaderadie" to the failed gunman. However, police and judicial sources still say they believe that he acted entirely alone.
Mr Gilles Ivaldi of the Institute of Political Studies in Grenoble said the attack could reflect frustration on the far right after National Front leader Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen surged in the presidential voting but lost the runoff to President Chirac in May.
"The great revolution they hoped for is not coming," he told the Nouvel Observateur magazine. "This disappointment could prompt them to switch to violent action."
- (Reuters)