Killing of French activist leads to political chaos, 11 arrests and bomb threat
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French police investigating the beating of a hero who died of brain injuries have arrested 11 people, prosecutors said Wednesday, in a case that is adding fuel to the country’s political divide ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old student described as a nationalist fanatic, died in hospital on Saturday. He was beaten two days earlier by a mob in the city of Lyon, in a fight that broke out between left-wing and far-right supporters on the sidelines of a student meeting where far-left lawmaker Rima Hassan was the keynote speaker.
An autopsy found Deranque suffered a fractured skull and fatal brain injuries, according to Lyon prosecutor Thierry Dran. He started a police investigation into murder and other possible crimes.
Dran’s office said police arrested a man and a woman on Wednesday morning, and nine other people were taken into custody on Tuesday night.
Shortly after Dran’s announcement, the Paris headquarters of the far-left France Unbowed received a bomb threat and had to be evacuated until everything was removed after the police secured the scene.
Parliamentary assistant to those who have been arrested
Videos of their clash in Lyon last week went viral on social media. According to many reports, Deranque is said to have supported a group of women who believe that immigrants are driving the crime wave in France.
Hassan, a French Palestinian born in a Syrian refugee camp, is a member of the European Parliament at France Unbowed. In a text on X after Deranque’s attack but before he died from his injuries, Hassan expressed “horror” at the violence and condemned it.
But Deranque’s death sparked a storm of recriminations, mostly blamed on France Unbowed. Opponents accuse it of stoking violence and discord over its militant politics, including its strong criticism of Israel.
Last year, Hassan was a passenger in a flotilla, along with activist Greta Thunberg and others, who wanted to bring aid to Gaza but were stopped by the Israeli army.
France Unbowed is led by leftist veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon, a former Trotskyist who ran for president in 2012, 2017 and 2022 and failed to make it to the final round.
He is preparing for another expected opportunity next year, when President Emmanuel Macron’s second and final term ends.
Both he and Macron called for calm after the killings.
Melenchon insisted on Tuesday that France Unbowed is not responsible for the tragedy in Lyon, saying: “We have nothing to do, directly or indirectly, with the death of this young man from Deranque.”
But the 11 people detained by police included a parliamentary assistant to the French lawyer Unbowed, French media reported.
The lawyer, Raphael Arnault, confirmed the arrest of aid to X without explaining the reason. Arnault said he is terminating the assistant’s contract.
Left-wing and right-wing groups have a long-standing, violent and sometimes violent rivalry in France, although deaths in clashes between them have been rare in recent decades.
France will hold municipal elections next month. Campaigning in full swing, France Unbowed’s right-wing and far-right opponents blamed Deranque’s death on Melenchon’s party, accusing it of fueling the violence and urging voters not to support it.
Jordani Bardella, the president of the National Rally group, said that Mélenchon “opened the doors of the National Assembly to the supposed killers.”
Criticism has also come from prominent figures on the left, including former French president Francois Hollande. He said the leading party left, including his Socialist party, must not join forces with Melenchon’s party in the next election, as they did before.
“The relationship with France Unbowed is over,” he said.
