French authorities on Monday opened a murder investigation after a 23-year-old man died from a severe brain injury following an attack on the streets of Lyon last week.
Lyon’s public prosecutor Thierry Dran announced the probe at a press conference, saying that Quentin Deranque had been attacked by “at least six” people on Thursday.
The victim was part of a group of far-right activists protesting the appearance of a left-wing politician speaking at a university in the western city of Lyon.
Prosecutor Dran said that no arrests had yet been made and that authorities were working to identify the hooded assailants suspected in a killing being treated as a potential case of both “intentional homicide” and “aggravated assault.”
Macron calls for calm as government implicates far left
The killing, thought to be part of a clash between left- and right-wing extremists, has strained tensions ahead of municipal elections in March and the 2027 presidential race.
Supporters held a march in memory of Deranque in Paris on Sunday, also attended by some far-right politicians including the founder of the “Reconquest” far-right party, former presidential candidate Eric Zemmour.
President Emmanuel Macron called for calm and for a swift investigation online.
“It is essential that the perpetrators of this ignominy be prosecuted, brought to justice and convicted,” Macron wrote on X at the weekend. “Hatred that kills has no place among us. I call for calm, restraint and respect.”
Far-right RN leader Marine Le Pen appealed for the “barbarians responsible for this lynching” to face the full force of the law.
An anti-immigration collective called Nemesis said that Deranque had been at the protest to protect its members.
It blamed the killing on a left-wing group called the Jeune Garde (Young Guard), an anti-fascist group cofounded by a current member of the left wing LFI political party, Raphael Arnault, before he joined the political fray.
The group, which was formally dissolved in June last year, denied any connection to the “tragic events.” LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon rejected any involvement from his party.
Nevertheless, government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon accused the LFI on Monday of having “encouraged a climate of violence for years.”
“There is therefore, in light of the political climate and the climate of violence, a moral responsibility of the part of LFI,” she said on BFMTV.
One of Arnault’s assistants had been banned from parliament after several witnesses mentioned him in the investigation into the fatal beating, parliamentary speaker Yael Braun-Pivet said on Monday.
Far-right and far-left could lead the race for presidency next year
France’s political mood is increasingly fractious as April 2027 presidential elections near, when incumbent Macron will not be eligible to run after serving the maximum permitted two terms.
Opinion polls currently suggest that the nationalist RN (National Rally) party of Marine Le Pen, possibly led by her deputy Jordan Bardella if Le Pen proves unable to run amid an ongoing appeal against an election ban, has the advantage — at least when it comes to a first-round vote with more than two candidates standing. Voting habits in a second round with only two choices can be more difficult to predict.
Macron’s centrist Renaissance party is struggling, while the traditional center-right and center-left powerhouses of French politics have been consigned to near-irrelevance for some time now.
At present, albeit with polling volatile and more than a year to go until a vote, a relatively new center-right party Horizons founded by Mayor of Le Havre and former Prime Minister Edouarde Philippe appears best placed to challenge the far-right.
A left-wing alliance led by LFI (France Unbowed) might also conceivably mount a serious challenge, as it did in 2024’s legislative elections. But that’s only if it can again unite a quite large group of ideologically disparate parties, none of which appear likely to challenge by themselves.
Edited by: Louis Oelofse
