News reports of this arrest are sparse, yet two days ago, French police arrested 20-year-old feminist activist Yona Faedda for conducting an interview on the rise of radical Islam in France, while maintaining her position that this rise poses a threat to women.
According to the French newspaper Le Progrès, Faedda is a member of the Nemesis collective, an activist group that started in 2019 in France. It’s named after the Greek goddess of revenge, and while its focus is on feminist issues, the group has been particularly vocal about the wave of Islamic immigration and its impact on the French culture, its people, and particularly, its women.
20-year-old French feminist activist Yona Faedda has been detained and placed in police custody after giving an interview on the rise of radical Islam in France and saying it poses a threat to women. pic.twitter.com/2FLBkhd8L0
— Dr. Maalouf (@realMaalouf) January 20, 2026
Le Progrès reported that on Sunday, Faedda was part of a group of roughly 12 young women who were conducting on-street interviews with passersby on the streets of Lons-le-Saunier. She was asking those who consented to an interview questions about Islamism.
Apparently, one interviewee changed her mind about whether she wanted to participate in the interview after she had already been recorded answering some of Faedda’s questions. She requested that Faedda’s group delete her comments from the recording equipment. She then went to the police to report this.
It’s not clear from published accounts the nature of what the woman said or whether Faedda refused to delete the recordings or not.
Police then came and arrested Faedda on the grounds that she didn’t have prior permission to conduct on-street interviews in that location. While we’re relying on the English translation of the newspaper report, in that translation, Le Progrès referred to Faedda’s act of interviewing as a “demonstration” and not as a journalistic activity.
ISLAMIFICATION: Yona Faedda, a member of a French feminist group, was arrested for conducting man on the street interviews asking for comments on the threat of radical Islam to women's rights. Free speech is dead in the EU when it comes to discussions of Islam. pic.twitter.com/oLBs60LN32
— @amuse (@amuse) January 20, 2026
French law regarding recording people in public says that filming in public places is generally allowed, but publishing images and recordings of people usually requires consent.
The founders of the Nemesis collective formed the group as a response to what Le Progrès described as “the wave of sexual assaults perpetrated on New Year's Eve 2016, mainly in Cologne and Hamburg, and blamed on groups of foreign nationals against German women.”
The collective draws a distinction between itself and other feminist activist groups because it says those groups put "leftist ideology” ahead of the interests of women.
Nemesis also recently organized a public demonstration called “No Hijab Day” in support of the women of Iran.
The brave Collectif @Coll_Nemesis is a group of French ladies led by Alice @CordierAlice2 (in green) who believe migrants pose a grave risk to the women & girls of France.
— David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) January 19, 2026
They are in Paris, taking their burkas off & burning images of @khamenei_ir & @camille_eros says in another… pic.twitter.com/DDF5j1PdOh
No word from any of the American feminist organizations on whether they support their truly courageous counterparts in France or Iran.
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