A leftist parliamentary assistant has been barred from the French National Assembly after being accused of taking part in the mob killing of a conservative university student in Lyon.
During a protest from the anti-mass migration feminist group Collectif Némésis, who gathered on Thursday on the Sciences Po university in Lyon in opposition to a lecture from far-left La France Insoumise (France in Rebellion) MEP Rima Hassan, a 23-year-old student, Quentin Deranque, was killed in an alleged act of Antifa violence.
Deranque, a conservative Catholic who had been asked by the female activist group to provide informal security from the far-left, suffered a traumatic brain injury during the attack and ultimately perished in the hospital on Saturday.
On Monday, the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, announced that the parliament had taken the “precautionary measure” of banning Jacques-Élie Favrot, the parliamentary assistant to LFI Raphaël Arnault, after he was accused by Némésis of being present during the attack that led to the death in Lyon, Le Figaro reported. Favrot has denied responsibility for the death of Quentin.
For his part, Arnault has long been the subject of controversy, having been accused and even reportedly convicted of violent assaults against conservatives. The founder of the Jeune Garde (Young Guard) Antifa branch in Lyon was also revealed to have been placed on the government’s extremist watch list. Despite this, he was still backed by the Jean-Luc Mélenchon party and was elected in 2024 to represent Vaucluse in the National Assembly.
Last year, the Young Guard was banned as an extremist organisation, a move that was publicly protested by Arnault and Mélenchon himself.
The killing of Quentin Deranque has sparked widespread condemnation of the far-left, including from Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who said on Sunday evening that “clearly it was the far left was behind it”.
“The investigation will confirm or deny whether or not they were members of the Young Guard. But the testimonies clearly point in that direction,” he said.
Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin also said that Quentin was “clearly killed by the far left.”
The leader of the populist National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, said that “far-left militias, which, for years, relying on the complacency and support of parties such as La France Insoumise, have multiplied in the public space, intimidation, threats and assaults.”
“Democracy can no longer accept those who want to overthrow it,” she argued, calling for the government to ban such Antifa groups as terrorist organisations, as was done by the Trump administration.
At a demonstration in Paris on Sunday, which drew support from right-wing leaders such as former presidential candidate Éric Zemmour and MEP Marion Maréchal, attendees were heard chanting “LFI murderers!” and “LFI assassins”. Others carried signs reading “Antifa murderers, justice for Quentin” and “Young Guard terrorists”.
On Monday, the Lyon prosecutor’s office said that Quentin was beaten on the ground by “at least six” people. They said that police have interviewed over fifteen witnesses and that video analysis is underway”. However, there have been no arrests yet. The prosecutors also did not say whether the Young Guard or the parliamentary assistant, Jacques-Élie Favrot, was involved in the attack.
Despite the alleged alignment between the killers of Quentin and the far-left, former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon has reacted with indignation and has attempted to cast his LFI party as the true victims of the weekend, noting that multiple party offices were vandalised while claiming that his party members had no involvement in the attack.
“It was all staged, arranged to make it look like some kind of raid by the Insoumise security service to hunt down some poor wretch,” he said, adding that “everything happened somewhere other than where Rima and the Insoumise security service were… We have nothing to do with this story or those who accuse us. They are slanderers!”
Former Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau responded: “A family is mourning their son, their brother… and meanwhile, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is holding forth about the way he was hurt and casting himself as the victim. Every boundary of decency has been crossed.”
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