Feb 17, 2026
3 min read
The killing occurred during a mass battle between a left-wing satellite group and a xenophobic organization.
The shocking death of a right-wing French soldier has put Jean-Luc Mélenchon's party in political jeopardy.
The killing took place during a massive clash between a satellite group of the Left Formation and a xenophobic organization
23-year-old nationalist Quentin Deranque, a member of a French far-right group, died in a hospital in Lyon last Saturday.He had been hospitalized since Thursday, when a group of far-left militants beat him during a fight that broke out to protest the action of Rima Hassan, a French-Palestinian member of parliament from France Insoumise (LFI), at Po Science University.
The police believe that the person behind the murder was a member of the Young Guard, a satellite organization of the LFI youth party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's party (disbanded last year), which drew public outrage from other political parties.Mélenchon rejects these insinuations and accuses the entire story of the crime of being "fabricated."In any case, the event is creating a very tense electoral atmosphere for the next local elections on March 15 and 22, reflecting France's growing polarization.A qualitative leap in transforming hate speech into political violence.
Deranque was a Catholic and mathematics student active in French Action, a far-right, monarchist organization.That day, however, she supported the Nemesis movement, which was made up of women and proclaimed itself feminist, racist and against Islam and trans women.Convinced that their presence could cause tension, they recruited a group of ideologically like-minded people, like Deranque, in case they needed help in the event of a clash.
The circumstances of the incident are not entirely clear, but the lawyer of Lyon, Thierry Dran, explained on Monday that the Nemesis soldiers attacked.They tried to tear the flag they were carrying, threw one of them down to kick, and tried to strangle the other.
There was a chase.The six assailants separated the three who showed up to help the Nemesis fighters amid the chaos.One of them was Deranke, who fell to the ground and was beaten by "at least six men," according to the French public ministry.
In the melee, according to the first information, was Jacques-Ely Favreau, the parliamentary assistant of the LFI deputy in the National Assembly, Raphael Arnault.The deputy is an active member of the Jeune Garde, an anti-fascist organization he co-founded and which usually accompanies the LFI at meetings or demonstrations to guarantee the safety of its leaders.
Arnault's assistant denied in his lawyer the information about his participation in the crime: "Jacques-Elie Favrot denies responsibility for this incident. He is not responsible for the penalties imposed," said the lawyer to Le Monde, without denying the presence of the young man in the area of Science Night.group in 2022 – a controversy has arisen during his election in 2024. In any case, neither of the two has been directly identified by the very cautious Prosecutor's Office.
The Lyon event has already become an important political issue in France.Pressure against the LFI is coming from all fronts and it is also clear that it is seeking to weaken its power in the next municipal elections, in which many municipalities, especially those with a strong Muslim presence, could fall to its candidates.The far-right National Rally (RN) took advantage of the moment of tension to demand that anti-fascist movements be included in the register of terrorist organizations.
Minister of Justice Gerald Darmanin also joined the statement."It is clear that the left will kill," he said during a tribute to Deranke at St George's Church.President Emmanuel Macron also pointed in this direction. "Quentin was the victim of extraordinary violence in Lyon," Macron wrote on his social network account.
The government spokeswoman, Maud Bregeon, gave her last grain of sand to the public cause against Mélenchon's party this Monday."France Insoumis has fueled an atmosphere of violence for many years. The LFI maintains proven and suspected links with a very violent ultra-left group," Bregeon told BFMTV/RMC.The spokesperson also wanted to emphasize "the moral responsibility of the LFI in the worsening atmosphere of violence".
This event coincides with the inclusion of the LFI in the Ministry of the Interior's registration as an 'extreme left' organization.The decision is met with fierce resistance from the party and its voters.In this context, just a month before the municipal elections across France, the issue has also taken on the character of an election.he said it was 'unthinkable' that the left would 'create the slightest doubt' about 'a possible alliance with the LFI'.
"This brutality in the public debate must end," declared Glucksman on RTL, "it is the responsibility of all political leaders who incite hatred, including the LFI."Mélenchon's party is today a public enemy of the French establishment, which prefers any situation to find its leader in the second round of the 2027 presidential election.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon has so far fiercely defended the Jeune Garde, an organization linked to the leftist movement, which was officially disbanded last June by the then interior minister, Bruno Retaillo."They protected our demonstrations when they came to attack us," he said at a demonstration in April 2025. He distanced himself from the event last weekend."We have nothing to do with it; [LFI MEP Rima Hassan] has nothing to do with what happened. Everything happened somewhere else. Everything was manipulated," he condemned.However, the case threatens to mark the debate in the next election.
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