A Nazi by any other name.........

French far right looks for Charlie Kirk moment after activist’s killing

Ahead of local elections that serve as a bellwether for next year’s presidential campaign, the National Rally says it is the victim of an increasingly radical left wing.

By Marion Solletty and Victor Goury-Laffont

France’s far right is framing the death of an activist associated with far-right groups as a moment akin to the murder of Charlie Kirk in the United States.

The National Rally has in recent days started pointing to the killing of 23-year-old Quentin Deranque in Lyon as proof the poll-topping populist party is the victim of an increasingly radical political left, much as the MAGA movement in the United States did following Kirk’s assassination last year.

With key municipal elections next month serving as a bellwether of the National Rally’s electability heading into the 2027 presidential race, the incident has deepened the fissures in France’s polarized politics and fueled fears of further violence.

“What happened to Quentin, it feels like it could have happened dozens of times to our supporters in recent years,” said National Rally MEP Pierre-Romain Thionnet.

“Of course, those are not the same circumstances,” Thionnet said of the Kirk comparison. “But there are similarities in the way it resonates.”

Deranque was, unlike Kirk, unknown to the general public before he died Saturday after taking several blows to the head during a fight that broke out near a university where MEP Rima Hassan was attending an event.

The events leading up to the fight that cost Deranque his life remain unclear. The far-right feminist group Collectif Nemesis said Deranque was providing security for them at their protest against Hassan and her anticapitalist party, France Unbowed.

France Unbowed and its firebrand leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon have been the focus of most of the fury following revelations that police are investigating whether members of the now-disbanded antifascist group Young Guard, cofounded by France Unbowed lawmaker Raphaël Arnault, was involved in the fight.

A judge on Thursday placed two people under formal investigation for voluntary homicide, while one of Arnault’s parliamentary assistants was put under formal investigation for aiding and abetting a crime.

Lyon’s chief prosecutor told reporters earlier Thursday that he had requested seven people, including the assistant, be put under formal investigation for voluntary homicide. The prosecutor said three of the suspects told investigators that they were or had been affiliated with “ultra-left” groups. Some acknowledged that they took part in a fight but all denied their intent was to kill Deranque, the prosecutor said.

Right-wing shock

National Rally President Jordan Bardella likened the incident to terrorism at a press conference Wednesday, as U.S. President Donald Trump had done after Kirk’s death.  

“When an organization uses terror to impose its ideology, it must be fought with the same force as terrorist groups,” Bardella said.  

France Unbowed and its firebrand leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon have been the focus of most of the fury following revelations that police are investigating whether members of the now-disbanded antifascist group Young Guard was involved in the fight. | Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images

Marion Maréchal, Marine Le Pen’s niece and an MEP with Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists, is asking the European Parliament to hold a debate “on the violence of the far left in Europe that threatens our democracies.” 

Meloni herself weighed in, expressing her “shock” on X before blaming “left-wing extremism” and “a climate of ideological hatred that is sweeping across several nations” — sparking yet another feud with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Macron and his prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said France Unbowed must “clean house.”

France Unbowed is invoking Kirk’s killing as well, but as a cautionary tale, concerned about a Trump-like crackdown on universities. 

French Education Minister Philippe Baptiste announced Tuesday he would seek to prevent political conferences at universities whenever authorities believed they could lead to confrontation. Hassan, the MEP who had been taking part in a conference in Lyon during the deadly confrontation, said she feared the government would respond with “censorship” at universities.  

And French media reported Thursday that Lyon Mayor Grégory Doucet was opposed to holding a march Saturday to honor Deranque over fears it could lead to more violence.

Historical violence

While the political climate in France appears to have turned more aggressive, historically most violence has been committed by extreme right-wing groups.

A 2021 study found that of the 43 homicides with ideological motives that occurred between 1986 and 2014, just four were committed by far-left militants.

The sociologist who oversaw that work, Isabelle Sommier, told French newspaper Le Monde in an interview published Thursday that the number of politically motivated assaults has doubled since 2017, most of them carried out by ultra-right extremists. She said if authorities determine that Deranque was killed by an antifascist group because of his political views, he’d be the first victim of extreme-left violence since the 1980s.

France Unbowed, for its part, has condemned the violent attack and said they played no role in it, stressing that the party’s call for a “civic revolution” is nonviolent. Arnault, the MP whose assistant is being investigated, expressed “horror and disgust” at the news of Deranque’s death and said he was working with parliamentary services to terminate the contract of an aide who reportedly took part in the fight. 

The tragedy isn’t expected to affect France Unbowed’s prospects in the race to lead Lyon, France’s third-largest city. The party was not expected to win there and polling obtained exclusively by POLITICO following Deranque’s death shows no significant change in France Unbowed’s prospects.   

The bigger test will be whether the incident affects the outlook for mayoral races where France Unbowed candidates are expected to be competitive.