Thousands of people on Saturday marched in southeastern France under heavy security in tribute to a far-right activist whose killing, blamed on the hard left, has put the country on edge.
The crowd — many wearing black and some covering their lower faces with masks — marched through the city of Lyon carrying flowers and placards bearing pictures of Quentin Deranque and the words: “justice for Quentin” and “the extreme left kills.”
The 23-year-old died from head injuries following clashes between radical left and far-right supporters on the sidelines of a demonstration against a politician from the left-wing France Unbowed (LFI) party in Lyon the previous week.
Photo: EPA
The authorities had deployed heavy security, including drones, fearing further clashes at the event that saw at least 3,200 people attend, according to local officials.
Hours before the gathering, French President Emmanuel Macron had urged “everyone to remain” calm.
He said the French government would meet next week to discuss “violent action groups” in the wake of the fatal beating, which has ignited tensions between the left and right ahead of next year’s presidential vote.
“In the Republic, no violence is legitimate,” said Macron, who will be unable to contest next year’s election after hitting the two-term limit.
The march went ahead without clashes, although one person threw an egg from a building, and police said another person was detained for carrying a knife and hammer.
More arrests are possible as police investigate suspects behind Nazi salutes, racist slurs and homophobic insults made during the procession and caught on video shared online, the local prefecture said.
Some residents living along the route hung signs from their windows reading “Lyon is antifa” or “Love is greater than hate.”
Mourners had first gathered in the church frequented by Deranque before his death and his portrait was hung from the facade of the administrative headquarters of the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region.
Laurent, a friend of Deranque, attended “to defend his memory” in the setting “where Quentin expressed himself most intensely, namely the Catholic Church and the traditional rite,” he said.
One of the rally’s organizers, Aliette Espieux, former spokeswoman for the anti-abortion movement, said she wished for a “peaceful tribute.”
However, she hit out at Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right National Rally party, which senses its best chance ever of scoring the presidency in next year’s vote.
Bardella had urged his supporters not to attend the rally, with Espieux saying: “I don’t find that very honorable.”
According to the Deranque family’s lawyer, Fabien Rajon, his parents would not take part in the rally, adding they hoped would go ahead “without violence” and “without political statements.”
Several right-wing groups, including Deranque’s nationalist Allobroges Bourgoin faction, had nonetheless heavily publicized the march on social media, stoking authorities’ concerns of unrest.
Ahead of the rally, some residents barricaded the ground floor windows of their apartments in fear.
“At my age, I’m not going to play the tough guy. If I have to go out somewhere, I’ll avoid the places where they’re marching,” Lyon local Jean Echeverria, 87, said. “They’ll just keep fighting each other, it’ll never end. Between the extreme of this and the extreme of that, it’s nonstop.”
The event went ahead despite calls from Lyon’s left-wing green mayor, Gregory Doucet, and LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard for the state to ban it.
However, French Minister of the Interior Laurent Nunez declined to ban the rally, saying that he had to “strike a balance between maintaining public order and freedom of expression.”
Deranque’s death has provoked a reaction from US President Donald Trump’s administration, with US Department of State official Sarah Rogers on Friday branding the killing “terrorism” and claiming that “violent radical leftism is on the rise.”
That came a day after Macron pushed back at comments by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on the death, suggesting she refrain from commenting on France’s internal affairs.
Six men suspected of involvement in the fatal assault have been charged over the killing, while a parliamentary assistant to a radical left-wing legislator has also been charged with complicity.
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