Four suspects have been arrested over the killing of a conservative Catholic student last week in Lyon, reportedly including a parliamentary assistant to radical MP Raphaël Arnault, the founder of an infamous and supposedly banned Antifa cell.
According to a report from Lyon-based newspaper Le Progrès, four people were arrested on Tuesday in connection with the death of Quentin Déranque, a 23-year-old student who suffered fatal brain injuries while providing informal protection for a protest of the identitarian-feminist Collectif Némésis, who were demonstrating against a lecture at the local Sciences Po university last Thursday by MEP Rima Hassan of the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI/France in Rebellion) party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Le Progrès reported that Jacques-Élie Favrot, a parliamentary assistant to the LFI MP Raphaël Arnault, was among the four suspects arrested on Tuesday. Arnault’s former intern, Adrian Besseyre, was also reportedly arrested. The paper previously reported that six suspects identified by the police were members of the Jeune Garde (Young Guard) Antifa branch in Lyon, which Arnault founded before he was elected to the National Assembly.
The Antifa cell was banned last year by the government for inciting violence; however, the apparent coordination at the protest last week throws into question whether or not the group actually disbanded.
The killing of Quentin has sent shockwaves through the French political system and sparked widespread condemnation of the far-left, and in particular the LFI, which chose to back Arnault for parliament despite being aware that he was on the government’s extremist watchlist for his role in Antifa.
Commenting on the arrest, the president of the populist National Rally party, Jordan Bardella, said: “A parliamentary assistant to the LFI MP Raphaël Arnault is among those arrested in the investigation into the death of Quentin.
“Jean-Luc Mélenchon bears immense moral and political responsibility: his complicity with ultra-leftist groups, which he himself describes as ‘young comrades’, has opened the doors of the National Assembly to presumed murderers.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the government’s Justice Minister, Gérald Darmanin, said that “the Young Guard kills, and La France Insoumise should condemn it,” saying that Antifa represented an “allied organisation” of the LFI.
The leader of the centre-right Les Républicains, Laurent Wauquiez, added: “This is not a minor incident, it is the result of the normalisation of political violence… the far left has blood on its hands”.
For their part, the LFI has so far refused to take responsibility, with Mélenchon and others attempting to portray their movement as the true victims of the tragedy.
In a grim reminder of the aftermath of the assassination of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year, footage has emerged of leftists appearing to celebrate the death of the university student.
Footage released by the identitarian magazine Frontières on Monday seemingly showed two men tearing down posters condemning the killing. In the footage, one of the men was heard saying: “I’m in favour of Quentin’s death!”
The killing has prompted calls from populist European politicians, including former Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and the leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Alice Weidel, for Antifa to be labelled as a terrorist organisation, following the lead of the Trump administration in the United States.
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