Davide, known to his friends as Dax, was a lorry driver and antifascist, from Rozzano, just outside Milan.
He was murdered by fascists outside a bar on Via Brioschi in Milan on the 16th of March, 2003.
Rozzano was a tough, working class neighbourhood, the type that could often be targeted by fascists, attempting to recruit disaffected young people to their cause. Dax was one of these youths briefly taken in by far-right ideas and aesthetics, before becoming an antifascist. In the documentary about Dax’s life, and the antifascist scene in Milan constructed around his memory –Brucia Ancora Dentro – a friend of Dax recalls;
My first memory of Davide was him in a black bomber jacket, handing out right wing leaflets. My second memory of him is with a Keffiyeh around his neck, and so much will to fight.
Davide and his friends moved from Rozzano to Milan to engage in wider antifascist struggle, and joined the ORSo collective, on Via Gola, in the Ticinese quarter of Milan.
ORSo – Officina della resistenza sociale (laboratory for social resistance)
Via Gola and the surrounding area were full of squats and abandoned spaces where radicals could dream of and plan a better world.
Dax was particularly drawn to the housing struggles of families in Ticinese, and fought against police during evictions. He was also active in AREA, the antifascist collective based at ORSo, involved in intelligence work and physical resistance against fascists, across Milan and beyond.
Dax was also involved in R.A.S.H, where he was again in the front line of physical resistance to fascism.
On the evening of the 16th of March, 2003, Davide and two friends were visiting a regular haunt, a bar on Via Gola, and were approached by fascists outside. Insults were exchanged, and as they clashed, with Davide in front, as always, the fascists pulled knives. One stabbed Davide in the throat. Davide and his friends were stabbed 19 times in total.
As Dax lay motionless on the floor, and and his comrades lay wounded beside him, their friends began to arrive. So did police and Carabinieri, who blocked the arrival of ambulances.
Dax was eventually lifted into an ambulance and taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The hospital was filled by Dax’s comrades – but also, by police, who began to taunt and mock the mourning antifascists. As this was occurring, riot police vans began pulling up outside the hospital.
The night ended with many of Dax’s comrades wounded, blood spilled across the floor of the hospital. Beaten with weapons, by tens of police. Some subsequently had to undergo surgery, another suffered permanent kidney damage. Many lost teeth or had broken noses.
Since Dax’s death, and these scenes at the hospital, now known as the Notte Nera, the antifascist movement in Milan has been constructed around the memory of Dax. This began with a corteo antifascista through the streets of Milan on the 22nd March, 6 days after Davide was murdered. Each year, to the current day, antifascists from Milan, across Italy, and beyond, march in Dax’s memory.
Davide’s family and friends continue his struggle to this day.
I had shared a piece of my life with Davide. We had walked side by side. So I chose to continue walking that path.His strength and his energy became part of me. From him, I inherited a family and friendships that became visceral and profound, and which I know I’ll never break from.
In memory of Davide, on the 23rd anniversary of his death.
Anastasia Baburova was a journalist, anarchist, and antifascist, from Sevastopol in Crimea. She was murdered in Moscow in 2009, alongside fellow antifascist, Stanislav Markelov. She was 25 years old.
Anastasia, known as Nastya by her friends, was a freelance journalist for Novaya Gazeta, known for its investigations into corruption and authoritarianism. Nastya was the third Novaya Gazeta journalist to be murdered, after Yuri Shchekochikhin and Anna Politkovskaya.
She was an active antifascist, involved in street actions against the growing neo-Nazi movement across Moscow, during a time where antifascists were constantly outnumbered and openly attacked, whilst Nazi’s were supported by the state.
As well as her antifascist activism, Anastasia was involved in many of the same environmental protest movements as Dmitry Petrov.
In 2008, Anastasia published her investigations into Russian neo-Nazi groups, in Novaya Gazeta.
Both her work and her activism placed her at risk of attack by fascists, and the increasingly authoritarian state. A state that had already proven its willingness to murder journalists, and would go on to murder other antifascists in collaboration with neo-Nazis.
In the months leading up to her death, Nastya became increasingly aware of the danger she was in, taking up martial arts for self-defense, and talking to friends about her situation. She was clearly fully aware that she was likely to be attacked, or even killed. Days before her death she cryptically emailed her parents asking them to “love me, please.“
In late 2008 Nastya had resigned from Novaya Gazeta, in protest at what she believed was an increasingly nationalist turn at the paper. She devoted the remaining days of her life to anarchist and antifascist activism, including contributing to Avtonom.
On the 18th of January 2009, Anastasia attended an Avtonom event. The following day, she was murdered.
She was leaving a press conference with Stanislav Markelov, on their way to the nearest metro stop. Before they made it there, a man appeared with a silenced pistol and fired three shots into Markelov. CCTV footage shows Nastya then moving towards the gunman before she herself is shot. She died in hospital later that night. Two of the shining lights of the antifascist movement in Russia had been extinguished at once.
At the memorial to the pair, police marched in and broke up the event, attacking and arresting the attendees.
The subsequent state investigations found that Nikita Tikhonov, a member of BORN, a Russian neo-Nazi organisation, was responsible for the murders, aided by his girlfriend, Eugenia Khassis. It is suspected that BORN was, at least, used and influenced by the Russian state.
It is very likely that Markelov and Baburova were murdered by the Russian state, and that Tikhonov and Khassis may or may not have been the actual murderers. Khassis, who performed Nazi salutes at her sentencing, has already been released from prison.
A documentary was made about Nastya’s life and death by director Valery Balayan, called Love me, please. The video clips featured in this article are all from this incredible work, which serves as a terrifying warning of what could be in store for the antifascist movement in western Europe – with authoritarian far-right parties on the cusp of gaining power everywhere.
The best memory for me is if you continue to actively struggle, overcoming personal ambitions and unnecessary harmful strife. If you continue to fight actively to achieve a free society based on equality and solidarity. For you and for me and for all our comrades. Risk, deprivation and sacrifice on this path are our constant companions. But be sure – they are not in vain. – Dmitry Petrov’s final message
Dmitry was active in the Russian anarchist movement from 2004. Initially focusing on housing and environmental activism, he gained the nickname “Ecologist” amongst his circle, whilst also becoming an active antifascist and engaging in street fights against Nazis across Moscow. He was also engaged in publishing, Food Not Bombs, and more.
Dima, as Dmitry was known by many of his friends, was a co-founder of blackblocg.info, a media collective whose team participated in and reported on anarchist actions.
When departing Rojava, and discovering that he had attracted the attention of the FSB, and that he was at risk of prison or worse, Dmitry was faced with a difficult choice; he eventually chose not to return to Russia and his family and friends. He moved to Ukraine and became a resident of Kyiv.
We want to remind all pessimists that there are no “objective” reasons for considering the social revolution and the triumph of libertarian ideas to be a matter of an indefinitely distant future. The speed and unpredictability of social changes in the modern world teach us one important lesson: everything is possible. Including freedom and justice. – Dmitry Petrov, to be a Revolutionary
Dmitry chose to fight alongside the Ukrainians against the Russian invasion, and was involved in the creation of the anti-authoritarian platoon, containing anarchists and antifascists from across the world.
Dmitry was articulate in multiple languages, and videos and accounts of his time fighting in Ukraine are essential for anyone that wishes to understand that conflict from an antifascist perspective.
After his death, Dmitry’s comrades revealed that he had been involved in many of the most significant anarchist initiatives in 21st century Russia, including the founding of the Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists.
There is an urgent need for radical change on the broadest possible territorial scale. We need a new world. Almost everything that exists in society is unacceptable and cannot serve as a framework for the present and the future. – Dmitry Petrov, The Mission of Anarchism in the Modern World
Further reading:
Leshy.Info – Website dedicated to the memory of Dmitry Petrov
We pushed back the fascists and we’ll do it again! Save the date to RESIST BRITAIN FIRST on 18th April.
Britain First’s leader said he’d ’never seen anything like it’ after we disrupted, blocked, and outnumbered their march. While complaining about low funds, he’s rushing back to Manchester after their failure to try and build back the fascist movement.
Well we won’t let them.
The fascists are on the back foot: skint and demoralised. Our solidarity is making us stronger than ever.
All out for April 18th to show them that there’s no coming back: not one inch to the fascists!
We ran the ‘March for England’ racists out of our city before. After years of staying away, they want to come back on Saturday 13th June to spread their divisive poison again. We won’t let them.
Thanks to Contre Attaque for their investigations and reports on this situation. This is our attempt to compile all of their reporting (and that of others) into a single English-language article that cuts through the far-right disinformation that has been presented as fact by the media.
TLDR version:
Quentin Deranque died as part of a botched far-right ambush on antifascists in Lyon on the 12th of February. Deranque was in the front rank of the fascist attack.
Far-right disinformation has been disseminated worldwide by complicit media, whilst Deranque, a neo-Nazi, receives a minute of silence in parliament.
Ongoing attempts to rehabilitate the image of fascists and Nazis go hand-in-hand with attempts to paint antifascists as violent extremists, the new Nazis.
Who was Quentin Deranque and what actually happened in Lyon?
Quentin Deranque was 23 years old, and associated with multiple fascist and neo-Nazi groups; Audace Lyon, Action Française, Allobroges Bourgoin, and Luminis Paris.
Audace Lyon is a new iteration of Lyon Populaire, which was dissolved in the Council of Ministers in 2025, for “Advocating collaboration with Nazism, and inciting discrimination and violence against foreigners, Jews, and homosexuals”.
Audace Lyon’s slogan is “White man, join your clan”. On social media, they post videos of combat training, and call for people to organise against “leftists, Islamists and ethnic gangs”.
You can clearly see that the fascists (right) have arrived armed and prepared, and the antifascists (left) are taken by surprise and forced to defend themselves.
On the 6th of March, new footage emerged showing Deranque in the front rank of the fascist attack, actively throwing punches at antifascists. You can see his actions in the video above, and in the pictures below, which show a closeup of him during the fight, and again afterwards.
Deranque during the fightDeranque after the fight
After the fight, Deranque is standing calmly and talking, with what appears be be blood covered hands. Deranque himself refused medical assistance at this time.
Deranque walked away from this fight. He wasn’t left for dead in the street, as has been reported.
This all happened as MEP Rima Hassan (LFI) was delivering a speech close by. This speech was used by the far-right as cover to arrange this tragic ambush.
A number of Deranque’s accomplices on the day have now been identified. They include Antoine Tignel, a member of Catholic fundamentalist group Héritage, Valentin Seddas, a far-right football hooligan, and Pol-Oscar Legris. Legris was one of the leaders of banned fascist group Lyon Populaire, and likely holds a leadership role in the successor organisation, Audace Lyon.
Two of the seven arrested following Deranque’s death worked for Raphaël Arnault, National Assembly member for LFI, and co-founder of the militant antifascist group, Jeune Garde, which was outlawed at the same time as Lyon Populaire.
Despite injuries sustained by the antifascists in this ambush, no arrests have been made amongst the far-right perpetrators.
Raphaël Arnault
Since Deranque’s death, left-wing bookshops have been under assault, political offices and mosques attacked, and antifascists placed under political and media siege. This is a clear alliance between the political class, the media, and street fascist organisations.
Also following Deranque’s death, a march through Lyon took place, supposedly in honour of Deranque. Attended by a who’s who of fascist and Nazi organisers from across France. The organiser of the march is in fact married to one of the most well known Nazi’s in Lyon, Eliot Bertin, leader of aforementioned banned group, Lyon Populaire. Bertin, who is personally banned from attending marches in Lyon, attended anyway, is caught on camera, but faces no action from the state. Others groups on the march performed Nazi salutes.
Unfortunately, this report by Channel 4, by far the most attached-to-reality reporting from UK-based media, still repeats most of the far-right narrative, despite catching these fascists in open lies in the process of their reporting.
The media chooses to repeat far-right lies without question
The unanimous and nauseating repetition of a neo-fascist activist’s message only serves to highlight the silence surrounding those who die at borders, in prisons and all places of confinement, at work, or as a result of misery and poverty. – La Horde
Despite the availability of videos, pictures and witness statements showing that this was a planned far-right attack on antifascists that went wrong, French media chose to show only a video of the end of the fight, where Deranque, and two of his accomplices, appear to be separated from the rest of the far-right gang, and are punched and kicked by greater numbers of antifascists. This narrative then made its way worldwide.
The uncoupling of our society from any vestige of reality, truth and decency continues apace, linked directly to billionaire control over media corporations who amplify the lies of the far-right.
Le Figaro (similar to the Telegraph or Times) published a full article of praise for Quentin Deranque, claiming he was a “Catholic lynched for his ideas” In this article, the phrase ‘far-right’ is not once used, despite Deranque’s open membership of multiple far-right organisations. This has been almost universal amongst the French media landscape.
It becomes clear how, in the political and media frenzy orchestrated by the radical far right, extending to the so-called mainstream right, and echoed by most of the major media outlets, bad faith, denial, and outright lies have served as the guiding principles for presenting the facts. Deranque’s death is thus presented as a starting point, when it is clearly, on the contrary, the tragic culmination of a decade of violence instigated by the far right. – La Horde
Some more respectable parts of the media, now that the truth is beginning to come to light, following investigations by activists groups, have made small steps to alter their line to reflect the truth; but the damage is done. The story of Quentin Deranque has become a story of antifascist aggression, the opposite of the truth.
What is now happening is a terrifying inversion of values; violent fascists and Nazis, previously considered the enemies of society, the defeated evil from the past, are now being painted as victims.
Consider the difference in the coverage of the death of Quentin Deranque to that around the death of Clément Méric.
As we have seen in Hungary, the US and now France, alongside calls for the proscription of “antifa” by Nigel Farage in the UK, there is an ongoing worldwide campaign by the far-right to make antifascism illegal, as part of the same campaign to normalise fascist ideology in the heart of our society.
All that remains is to finalise the criminalization of antifascism by demanding its outright ban, associating it with “terrorism.” As early as 2017, the National Front (which was not yet the National Rally) promised to dissolve “antifa militias” if it won the presidential election, while in 2023, National Rally officials repeatedly called for the dissolution of antifascist groups in order to silence those who tirelessly fight them. – La Horde
Despite Deranque’s attendance, in a balaclava at the neo-Nazi “May 9 committee” parade in Paris, antifascists are portrayed as violent far-left extremists who carried out an unprovoked “lynching” of a “nice young man.” No real reporting is done on his background, and discovering the true events in Lyon is left to tiny media collectives.
Deranque attends a Nazi march in 2025. Image: Contre Attaque
Of course, this isn’t completely new. It’s a process that began in Italy in the 90s, when Silvio Berlusconi, the owner of a media empire and a football club who went on to become Prime Minister, made sure that fascism was sdoganato (‘cleared through customs’). This was the first step in breaking the post-war antifascist consensus in Italy; paving the way for the election of the ‘post-fascist‘ government of Meloni, and the immediate persecution of anarchists and antifascists, and the likely state-sponsored hacking/spyware attacks on left-wing activists and journalists.
There is always a long story behind the coming-to-power of fascists. We are witnessing a major part of this unfold in front of us in France, as the far-right and their allies in the billionaire owned media cynically use Quentin Deranque, their martyr, their Horst Wessel, to accelerate this process.
This is supported by politicians from across the political spectrum, including many on the supposed left, who held a minute of silence in parliament for the death of a Nazi, one who set out to attack people as part of an armed gang.
The political class doesn’t mind the “lynchings” when they’re committed by the far-right. The real scandal is that this was an ambush by those who wanted to “smash the heads” of antifascists; an ambush which backfired on them.
Hooded figures. A man on the ground, curled up, being attacked by a mob, beaten with bottles, broken glass, and knives. Two seriously injured, one stabbed – a CGT union member.
These images are not the ones from Lyon that were broadcast a few days ago. They date from almost exactly a year ago and show a neo-Nazi ambush in the heart of Paris against a local activist group that was showing a film against the far-right .
As they left, this group shouted “Paris is Nazi” and left behind Celtic cross stickers to claim responsibility for their actions.
These were the same Celtic crosses that Quentin Deranque and his friends brandished at demonstrations. These images were not widely circulated in the media, because it was crucial not to expose the public to the reality of fascist terror in France.
The man who orchestrated this attack, which could have killed several left-wing activists, is named Calixte Guy, an ultra-violent neo-Nazi. He was also coordinating with Némésis to set up other ambushes in Lyon. On his phone, investigators found this message: “Don’t worry about Antifa, Audace will take care of it.” Audace is the group to which Quentin Deranque also belonged, and which organises combat training to “defend the white race.” And these are the same people who are now playing the victim.
In this exchange, which took place a few weeks before the fatal brawl, the neo-Nazi Calixte Guy tells a leader of the Nemesis group: “You’re going to Lyon 2-Lyon 3 to carry out your action; we’ll set up a team there to pick off the leftists.” He and his gang tell her they’ll be stationed in a nearby bar: “We’ll mobilise and hide out at Bobar.” Their objective was to attack left-wing students by surprise.
Further on, the Nemesis activist suggests to him: “We can just be two or three girls, handing out leaflets wherever you want to catch them, a bit like bait. We won’t claim [the action] as being from Nemesis.” Calixte Guy replies: “Honestly, do it (…) Nothing will ever happen to you as a woman.” Contrary to the media narrative, the far-right activists have in fact never been threatened. They claimed to have been “protected” from an imaginary attack, by Quentin Deranque and his gang, but everyone knows perfectly well that this is false, including themselves. They risk nothing except being insulted and having their egos bruised.
The Nemesis activist still asks her neo-Nazi friend: “You’ll be numerous enough if they’ve mobilized on their end, are you sure? I don’t want you getting yourselves killed for us because we won’t be able to help you.”
An ambush went wrong for the attackers. Ultimately, that’s the only conclusion everyone should have drawn from this sad affair, if our media weren’t controlled by far-right billionaires. The minute of silence was politically reprehensible . With these developments, it becomes ludicrous.
The media and leaders are completely unconcerned by “lynchings” and “political violence.” Otherwise, the Paris attack a year ago would have generated as much publicity as the death of Quentin Deranque. But violence is only condoned when it comes from the reactionary camp.
This case reveals a harsh reality: what antifascists are being criticised for is not letting themselves be murdered without reacting.
Neo-Nazi attacks have been happening for years , and their perpetrators boast about “smashing the heads” of antifascists. People are left for dead, silently, far from the media spotlight, and without any real consequences. The real criticism is that this time, it’s the neo-Nazis who have lost. This charade has gone on long enough. The arrested antifascists must be released.
