The United States is hosting a ministerial meeting on Thursday aimed at internationalizing the fight against left-wing extremism including Antifa, classified by President Donald Trump as a “terrorist organization”, in a context of increasing political violence.
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Under the title “Resurgence of Political Terrorism”, the meeting under the auspices of Secretary of State Marco Rubio particularly targets “far-left terrorism”, which, according to the American government, is on the rise.
More than sixty delegations, from Europe to Asia, are expected at this meeting which will also include the American Minister of Finance Scott Bessent and Donald Trump’s immigration advisor, Stephen Miller.
France will be represented at senior civil servant level, according to an official French source.
The timing may be surprising as the United States is mired in war with Iran.
But American officials assure that the meeting has been in preparation for a long time and that it comes at the right time with the aim of strengthening international cooperation in this area.
“Far-left political terrorism is experiencing renewed activity,” the State Department said in a statement, emphasizing that “these are not isolated incidents” but a “deliberate, ideologically motivated strategy to destabilize free societies.”
US President Donald Trump on July 6 during a press conference in the Oval Office.
Photo If
“For too long, this threat has remained a blind spot in the fight against terrorism led by the international community, underestimated and equipped with insufficient resources, despite the danger it represents,” adds the text.
An analysis, much commented on at the time, by the American think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published last year noted an increase in far-left violence in the United States over the last ten years, since the election of President Donald Trump in 2016.
But, the study’s authors added, “it has increased from very low levels, and remains well below historical levels of violence perpetrated by far-right and jihadist perpetrators of attacks.”
Transnational character
American officials cite Europe as an example, evoking in particular the sabotage of the French railway network for the opening of the Olympic Games in 2024, or the death of nationalist activist Quentin Deranque in February, attributed to anti-fascists.
But also attacks attributed to the far left in Italy in 2024 and in Germany at the start of the year, or, at the beginning of July, the attacks against several members of a conservative party in Greece, leaving one dead and four injured.
The subject “has not really been addressed collectively in an effective manner” given its transnational nature and its “sophisticated” modus operandi, a senior State Department official told reporters on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In a recent report on anti-terrorism, the Trump administration attacked Europe, described as an “incubator of terrorist threats”.
This document defines three main “threats” against the world’s leading power: “narcoterrorists and international gangs”, “historical Islamist terrorists” and “violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and anti-fascists”.
In this, it is a break with the previous administration of Democrat Joe Biden, which had on the contrary designated small far-right groups, in particular those claiming to be white supremacists, as a major threat.
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Anarchist groups
The “Antifa” movement, for “anti-fascist”, is particularly in the viewfinder.
It is a nebulous movement of left-wing activists that experts say is more of a political ideology than an organized group.
The US president designated it a “domestic terrorist organization” last year, after the assassination of ultraconservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Abroad, Washington has sanctioned small groups in Europe including “Antifa Ost”, based in Germany, as well as three other anarchist groups in Italy and Greece.
In the United States, the movement was particularly evident from 2016 after the first election of Donald Trump.
Critics of the Trump administration note that far-left violence historically remains well below that of the far-right and accuse the Republican leader of fueling violence.
Upon his return to the White House in January 2025, he pardoned more than a thousand of his supporters who had stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Donald Trump himself has been targeted by three attempted attacks, the most recent in April during the White House press gala.
