Coupat spent over six months in jail before being released on bail; he was held for a significantly longer period than other members of the Tarnac Nine because French police believed him to be the leader of the group, which they described as an Anarchist cell.
[7][8] In 1999, he co-founded a radical philosophy magazine called Tiqqun before setting up a commune in 2005 in the village of Tarnac in the Corrèze department where he and his friends ran a farm and an all-purpose store.
The arrests were publicly applauded by Interior minister Michèle Alliot-Marie who described the suspects as "an anarcho-autonomist cell" and Coupat as its leader.
A judge first ordered Coupat's release on December 19, 2008, but the judicial services immediately appealed, using a highly unusual procedure.
[11] The French police said he was part of the Invisible Committee of the book The Coming Insurrection, which was denied by the publisher and Julien Coupat himself.