A French prosecutor is seeking murder charges against seven suspects in the fatal beating of an extremist activist that has fueled political anger beyond France’s borders, prompting Emmanuel Macron to tell Italy’s Giorgia Meloni to stay out of French affairs.
Quentin Derank, 23, died of head injuries after being attacked by at least six people during a terrorist protest in Lyon on February 12. Most of the 11 suspects detained belong to left-wing movements.
Prosecutor Thierry Dron told a press conference that he requested murder charges against the seven and recommended that they be kept in custody to avoid “disturbance of public order”.
The killing fueled political tensions ahead of French municipal elections in March and the 2027 presidential race, in which the far-right National Rally party is expected to have the best chance of winning the top job.
On Wednesday, Meloni said Derank’s killing was a “wound for all of Europe”.
Macron said there was no place in France for “movements that adopt and legitimize violence” and called on all political parties to “clean up” their act. “Nothing justifies violent action – not on one side or the other, and not even in a face-to-face confrontation that would be fatal to the republic,” he said.
After Meloni lamented the “climate of ideological hatred”, Macron suggested that people should “go their own way”.
“The fact that nationalists — people who don’t want anyone to bother them at home — are always the first to comment on what’s happening somewhere else,” Macron said during a visit to Delhi.
Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said the killing of the French activist was “a serious matter for all of us”. Tajani said in X that similar incidents had happened in Italy’s history and that condemning such violence aimed “to ensure that we do not return to the terrible past”.
He says that there were “many Quentins in Italy, some in the darkest days of the Republic”.
Macron is “closely monitoring” events, a member of his team said on Thursday: “We must avoid a violent spiral.”
Eleven people – eight men and three women – have been detained in connection with the murder. Two of the seven homicide suspects refused to speak while in custody, Dron said.
He said others were at the scene and “some admitted to being hit,” but all disputed that they had any homicidal intent. He said that four suspects have been released, but they are looking for others.
Among those originally detained were two parliamentary aides to Raphael Arnault, an MP from the hard-left France Unbid (LFI) party, as well as a former intern.
A lawyer for Deranque’s parents said they called for “calm and restraint”. “The family condemns any call for violence. Any form of political violence,” Fabian Rajan told broadcaster RTL.
In early parliamentary elections in 2024, Macron’s supporters and the left, including the hard left, have joined forces in an attempt to prevent the right from coming to power. But after Derank’s assassination, some high-profile politicians tried to distance themselves from the hard left, with no future alliances.
The justice minister, Gerald Darmanin, called on Arnault to “draw consequences” if the judiciary “finds serious and consistent evidence against him or the aides he employs”.
LFI’s national coordinator, Manuel Bompard, said Arnault would “absolutely” not be suspended or excluded from the LFI group in the lower house of the National Assembly.
The anti-immigration group Nemesis blamed an anti-fascist youth group for the activist’s murder. Young Guard (Young Guard) which Arnault co-founded before being elected to Parliament.
