The “ultra-left” in France was behind the fatal beating of a French youth aligned with the far right, Paris’s justice minister said on Sunday, after the killing inflamed political tension in the country ahead of elections.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin also accused hard-left politicians, including those from the France Unbowed party, the largest left-wing faction in parliament, of fueling violence with their language.
The victim, Quentin Deranque, aged 23, was hospitalized and placed into a coma on Thursday after being attacked in the southeastern city of Lyon. The office of the Lyon prosecutor on Saturday told AFP that Deranque had died of his wounds.
Supporters said he had been providing security at a protest against an appearance by Rima Hassan, a member of the European Parliament for France Unbowed, when he was assaulted by a gang of rival activists.
Investigators are working on identifying the perpetrators, the prosecutors’ office said on Sunday. An investigation has been opened into suspected aggravated manslaughter.
“It was clearly the ultra-left that killed him,” Darmanin told the Cologne-based RTL television.
“There are indeed speeches, particularly from France Unbowed and the ultra-left, which unfortunately lead to unbridled violence on social networks and then in the physical world,” he said.
“Words can kill,” Darmanin added, accusing Hassan and France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Melenchon of “not having a word to say for the family of the young man.”
Leader of left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI), part of left-wing coalition Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), Jean-Luc Melenchon (C) delivers a speech after the results of the first round of parliamentary elections are announced at La Faiencerie in Paris, France, on June 30, 2024. (Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP)
Later Sunday, 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, rejecting the blame placed on it as lacking “any connection with reality.”
Centrist President Emmanuel Macron has called for “calm” and “restraint.”
An alleged video of the attack broadcast by the French 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. When I came to the scene, I saw individuals covered in blood,” a witness to the attack, who gave only the first name Adem, told AFP.
According to the Nemesis collective, which is associated with 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 that Quentin appeared to have been ambushed by “organized and trained individuals, vastly superior in number, and armed, some with their faces masked.”
French far-right party Rassemblement National (RN) group president for the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region and RN spokesperson Andrea Kotarac (center) and president of the Rassemblement National parliamentary group, Marine Le Pen (second from left) attend a rally after the fatal beating in Lyon of a 23-year-old in Paris, France, on February 15, 2026. (Alain JOCARD / AFP)
The incident has further fueled 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, said on X that the “barbarians responsible for this lynching” should be brought to justice.
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.”
The far right has pointed the finger at la Jeune Garde (Young Guard), an anti-fascist youth offshoot of France Unbowed.
But its founder, Raphael Arnault, a France Unbowed lawmaker, expressed his “horror” at the fatal beating, and the group denied involvement, saying it had “suspended all activities.”
France Unbowed 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 the southeastern city marked by violence from “far-right groups.”
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.
