Death of French Rightist in Street Brawl Sparks Nation’s ‘Charlie Kirk Moment’

France is having its own “Charlie Kirk moment” with hundreds of far-right activists marching through the central city of Lyon on Saturday to protest the death of one of their own in a street brawl with anti-fascist militants. Last week’s death from brain injuries of 23-year-old Quentin Deranque has triggered a wave of recriminations across France, with much of the anger directed at France Unbowed, a far-left party led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.During Saturday’s march, demonstrators dressed largely in black, some with their faces partially covered, held white tulips and displayed stickers bearing the slogan: “Quentin, killed by Mélenchon’s militia,” the Associated Press reported.The march followed days of smaller protests and tributes, including a nighttime neo-Nazi march in Paris and a series of attacks on the offices of France Unbowed, known by its French initials LFI. The Place de la République in Paris was painted in swastikas and antisemitic slogans on the same night, the state-owned television network France 24 reported.Deranque himself had reportedly been a member of neo-fascist and antisemitic groups and participated last year in a neo-Nazi parade in Paris. Mr. Mélenchon has personally condemned the killing, saying, “Neither death nor violence have any place in political disputes.”France 24 estimated that about 3,200 people turned out for Saturday’s march under the gaze of a heavy police presence. One marcher, Christian Petiteau, 70, told the AP he had come to Lyon to honor the memory of Deranque, who he said had been “cowardly murdered.”French media accounts say Deranque died after a clash between far-right and far-left activists, many on both sides armed and masked, on February 14 in Lyon. Video published by Le Canard Enchainee shows the rightists using pepper spray, reinforced gloves, a metal crutch and a pyrotechnic flare.The rightists were driven back, but a few stragglers, including Deranque, fell behind, the reports say. Deranque was knocked to the ground and repeatedly kicked in the head. He was able to walk away from the scene but later was taken to a hospital, where he died.In a long French-language posting on X this week, a centrist former prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, compared the backlash to the American response to last year’s assassination of a popular conservative activist, suggesting France could be having its own “Charlie Kirk moment.”“It’s a moment aimed at delegitimising part of the political spectrum and casting the triumphant far right as a victim,” Mr. de Villepin wrote. “Let’s stay vigilant. Let’s not concede ground to the far right.”A senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow’s school of social and political sciences, Timothy Peace, told France 24 that Deranque’s death had given the far right “the opportunity to paint the left, and LFI in particular, as the main source of political violence in France — and to distance themselves from their own problematic history with extreme and violent street movements.”Political violence has long bedeviled France, with 57 deaths linked to violence between political groups between 1986 and 2017, France 24 reported. It quoted a sociologist, Isabelle Sommier, saying the radical right was blamed for all but five of those deaths.

Death of French Rightist in Street Brawl Sparks Nation’s ‘Charlie Kirk Moment’

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