French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. Photo: Reuters/Quentin De Groeve

France’s Interior Minister on Monday announced the dissolution of a traditionalist Catholic association after one of its leaders called for Jews to be stripped of their political and civil rights.

“Antisemitism has no place in our country,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted. “I strongly condemn these ignominious remarks and direct them the Public Prosecutor.”

Darmanin added that he had issued instructions for “the dissolution of Civitas,” the name of the association.

Darmanin was responding to a speech delivered to a Civitas meeting in the town of Pontmain on July 30 by Pierre Hillard, an essayist. Hillard argued that the situation of Jews in France prior to the French revolution of 1789 — when they had no legal rights — should be restored.

“The naturalization of the Jews in September 1791 opens the door to immigration,” Hillard stated. “If we restore the laws of Catholicity and [make] traditional Catholicism a state religion, perhaps we should return to the situation before 1789.”

Demands for the dissolution of Civitas were voiced by several Jewish and anti-racist organizations, including the Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF) and the International League Against Racism and Antisemitism (LICRA).

Civitas was formed in 1999, when it split from a bigger Catholic traditionalist organization founded by Jean Ousset, an ideologist who collaborated with the pro-Nazi Vichy regime in France during World War II. The group advocates an “integralist” approach which holds that the Catholic faith should be the basis of a country’s law and public policy.