Plainclothes police officers were present and actively surveilling an Antifa cell during a protest, which saw a conservative student suffer fatal blows to the head in an alleged mob leftist killing, raising questions about whether law enforcement could have intervened to save his life.
The killing of mathematics student Quentin Deranque at the Sciences Po university in Lyon, allegedly by members of the Jeune Garde (Young Guard) Antifa cell, took a dramatic turn this week as BFMTV published never-before-seen photos apparently taken by territorial police intelligence (RT) agents in the minutes surrounding the killing.
The broadcaster, citing “numerous police sources”, reported that the agents were concerned over potential clashes between the far-leftist group — which had been banned by the government — and the right-wing feminist group Collectif Némésis, which gathered at the university to protest a lecture from open borders advocate MEP Rima Hassan of the far-left La France Insoumise (France in Rebellion) party.
According to the images obtained by BFMTV, the intelligence agents documented the far-left group arriving on the scene at 5:56 pm, after which a fight immediately broke out against the right-wing group tasked with protecting the identitarian female protesters, including Deranque.
However, critically, the police surveillance appears to have been dropped between 5:57 pm and 5:59 pm, the precise time at which Deranque suffered fatal blows to his head. The broadcaster speculated that officers may have been in a car circling the area, which has a one-way street; however, the exact cause of the interruption remains unclear at the time of this reporting.
The police agents arrived back in an area with a clear vantage point minutes later, at which point Deranque made it to his feet with the help of another. The conservative student then managed to escape the incident, but suffered a cerebral haemorrhage from the blows to his head and died in hospital two days later.
The broadcaster reported that it also appears that the undercover agents failed to film an interaction at 5:30 pm, when members of the Collectif Némésis right-wing feminist group came under physical attack after they displayed a banner reading: “Islamo-leftists outside of our universities.”
Despite apparently missing crucial moments of violence, the report has raised questions as to why the agents did not intervene and potentially prevent the fatal blows suffered by Deranque.
Such questions have been raised primarily by members of the far-left La France Insoumise party, who have come under heavy criticism nationally, given that one of its MPs, Raphaël Arnault, was a founding member of the Lyon Young Guard Antifa cell implicated in the alleged mob killing.
According to BFMTV, again citing unnamed police sources, the RT agents tasked with surveillance are trained to be discreet and are often unarmed. It remains unclear if the officers present on the fatal day were armed or not, however.
Another police source noted that the agents had apparently missed the instance of Deranque being hit in the head and had observed him walking away from the scene, and therefore likely thought intervention was unnecessary.
Regardless, the fact that police were aware that several members of the Young Guard continued to organise on campus despite the Antifa cell being officially banned by the government also raises questions about the government’s ability or willingness to enforce bans on extremist groups.
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