France’s government said Sunday the “ultra-left” was behind the fatal beating of a French youth aligned with the far right, after the killing inflamed political tension ahead of March local elections.
The victim, 23-year-old Quentin Deranque, died of his wounds after being attacked Thursday at a protest against a left-wing politician in the southeastern city of Lyon.
Supporters said Deranque had been providing security at a protest against an appearance by Rima Hassan, a member of the European Parliament for hard-left party France Unbowed (LFI), when he was assaulted by a gang of rival activists.
Deranque was hospitalised after the attack and placed into a coma, but prosecutors on Saturday told AFP he had died of his wounds.
“It was clearly the ultra-left that killed him,” said Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, accusing hard-left politicians — including from LFI, the largest left-wing faction in the French parliament — of fuelling “unbridled violence” with their language.
“Words can kill,” Darmanin added, accusing Hassan and LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon of “not having a word to say for the family of the young man”.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez echoed the accusation, telling public broadcaster France 2 the “ultra-left” was “clearly at the helm” in the attack.
– ‘Compassion’ –
Speaking after Darmanin’s comments, Melenchon voiced his “shock” at the killing.
“We also send our empathy and compassion to his family and loved ones,” he said.
Melenchon, a three-time presidential candidate widely expected to run again in elections next year, added that his movement opposes violence. He rejected the blame placed on it as lacking “any connection with reality”.
Investigators are working on identifying the perpetrators, the Lyon prosecutors’ office said Sunday. An investigation has been opened into suspected aggravated manslaughter.
An alleged video of the attack broadcast by TF1 television shows a dozen people hitting three others lying on the ground, two of whom manage to escape.
“I heard shouts, people were hitting each other with iron bars and so forth,” a witness to the attack, who gave only the first name Adem, told AFP.
“When I came to the scene, I saw individuals covered in blood,” he added.
According to the Nemesis collective, which is close to the far right, Quentin was providing security for its protesters and was assaulted by “anti-fascist” activists.
The family’s lawyer said in a statement Quentin appeared to have been ambushed by “organised and trained individuals, vastly superior in number and armed, some with their faces masked”.
– Pre-election tension –
The incident has further fuelled tension between France’s far right and hard left ahead of municipal elections nationwide in March and the 2027 presidential race.
Three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who is still hoping to stand in 2027 despite a graft conviction, condemned the “barbarians responsible for this lynching”.
Demonstrations called by the far right in memory of Quentin took place in the southern city of Montpellier and Paris, where protesters unfurled a banner reading “antifa murderers, justice for Quentin”.
A march in his honour has been scheduled for Saturday in Lyon.
The far right has blamed the killing on la Jeune Garde (Young Guard), an anti-fascist youth offshoot of the LFI.
But its founder Raphael Arnault, an LFI lawmaker, expressed his “horror” at the fatal beating, and the group denied involvement, saying it had “suspended all activities”.
LFI lawmaker Eric Coquerel, speaking to Franceinfo, condemned “all political violence” but said the activists responsible for Hassan’s security “were in no way involved in what happened”.
He pointed instead to a particular “context” in Lyon marked by violence from “far-right groups”.
Centrist President Emmanuel Macron has called for “calm” and “restraint”.
At Saint George’s Church in Lyon, which the young man attended and where he volunteered for charities, priest Laurent Spriet called on Sunday for prayers “for the peace of Quentin’s soul”.
“Everything in its own time. Now is for compassion, for respect, for prayer, for letting the police and the justice system do their work,” he said.
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