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”.
Deranque died following a failed far-right ambush on antifascists, where they lay in wait behind a tunnel, not as part of a “security team” for Collectif Némésis, as claimed by the far-right.
In reality, as Contre Attaque and others have revealed, a group of 13 antifascists were ambushed by 16 far-right activists, many carrying weapons and wearing masks or balaclavas. Deranque has now been proven to be in the front rank of the attacking fascists.
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.
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.
It has now been revealed by L’Humanitie that Audace Lyon and Némésis activists organised and carried out a previous attempted ambush on antifascists in Lyon, just months before.
Far-right violence, particularly towards antifascists, is a growing problem in France, although rarely receives media coverage. In Lyon alone, there have been 102 recorded fascist attacks since 2010. The events leading to Deranque’s death began as just another.
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.
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.
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.
All of this is happening within living memory of Oradour-sur-Glane, Bois d’Eraine, Tulle, Maillé. It’s hard to believe.
We’ll finish with this statement from Lyon antifascists, published by La Horde;
Solidarity with the imprisoned antifascists. La lutte antifasciste est internationale!
