The violent death of Quentin Deranque at the hands of far-left militants has brought into sharp focus the links between the antifa organisation La Jeune Garde (Young Guard), the far-left party La France Insoumise (LFI), and other left-wing parties.
Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old French conservative activist, died on February 15 from injuries sustained in an assault by a group of men outside a conference given by an MEP from La France Insoumise, Rima Hassan, at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Lyon.
Two of the seven men suspected of involvement in the fatal assault are salaried parliamentary assistants to Raphaël Arnault, an LFI deputy and co-founder of the far-left group La Jeune Garde.
The first, Jacques-Élie Favrot, is an active member of the collective and had previously been subject to a fiche S, France’s state security watch listing, in connection with his antifascist activities. His employer, Arnault, had himself previously been listed.
The second suspect, Robin Chalendard, is another member of La Jeune Garde. He is also known to domestic intelligence services for his involvement in the far-left milieu and is currently subject to a fiche S.
In total, four of the suspects are reportedly flagged by intelligence services and are under active surveillance.
La Jeune Garde was founded in Lyon in 2018 by Raphaël Arnault, who has since been elected to parliament under the banner of La France Insoumise in the 2024 French legislative election. The antifa group was formally dissolved by the Interior Ministry in June 2025 following multiple incidents of violence.
Between 2019 and 2025, the Young Guard claimed responsibility for over 50 assaults through their Telegram channel, Antifa Squads, where highly violent videos were regularly shared.
Arnault himself was convicted in 2024 and given a four-month suspended prison sentence for voluntary violence committed as part of a group, in connection with events dating back to 2021.
Arnault’s statements have also been a source of controversy. On October 7, 2023, the day of the Hamas massacre, La Jeune Garde issued a statement celebrating that “the Palestinian resistance launched an unprecedented offensive against the colonial State of Israel”.
One member of the group, Hamma Alhousseini, known as Luc Bawa, had previously expressed support on Instagram for the Boko Haram terrorist organisation and appeared to endorse the decapitation of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty, writing: “Keeps insulting and badmouthing the same religion and there’s the result [sic]”. In August 2020, he was also conclusively convicted of assault in Lyon.
Concerns over the radical Left have reached the highest levels of the French military. In a note published in July, the Directorate of Defence Intelligence and Security (DRSD) warned of an “intensification of protest actions” by far-left groups, highlighting incidents of sabotage and arson targeting French defence companies.
Similar alarm exists within French law enforcement. A report from the National Gendarmerie Directorate (DGGN) noted that the growing use of violent tactics by the far-left, particularly its environmentalist branch, is especially troubling when such movements benefit from strong political support.
“The real cause for concern is not the existence of violent fringe groups – such movements have long existed across the political spectrum – but that they now receive open support from an institutional party represented in the National Assembly”, Guillaume Bigot a French MP for the National Rally (RN) told Brussels Signal.
For Guillaume Bigot, La France Insoumise’s tolerance for violence is rooted in its ideological inheritance from Trotskyism.
He contends that political opponents deemed “illegitimate” by the Left are routinely branded as Nazis. “This is what I call ‘hatefully correct,’” Bigot says. “The implication is clear: If LFI fails to achieve its aims through the ballot box, and if its ‘Nazified’ opponents come to power democratically, then the existing order may be considered legitimately overthrowable.”
In a video published on her YouTube channel in February 2020, reflecting on the death of Quentin Derangue, Mathilde Panot, president of the LFI parliamentary group, declared: “We will never accept, in our country, that fascism comes to power legally through the ballot box, which is what Marine Le Pen wants to do.”
Despite the political scandal following the arrest of Arnault’s parliamentary assistants, LFI has shown no inclination to distance itself from its deputy. When asked in an interview on BFMTV on February 22 whether Arnault could be suspended or excluded from the parliamentary group, Panot was unequivocal: “Certainly not. I am proud to have Raphaël Arnault in my group.”
The day before Quentin Deranque’s death, LFI issued a statement supporting La Jeune Garde’s appeal to the Conseil d’État (Council of State) against its dissolution: “We say it proudly: La Jeune Garde is essential.”
In April 2025, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, LFI’s leader, publicly described the group at a rally in Auxerre as “an allied organisation, linked to the Insoumis movement,” adding: “Tomorrow, 1 May, I call on all my Insoumis comrades to group themselves behind the banner of La Jeune Garde. I speak of them with passion, for they are my young comrades.”
The open ties between La Jeune Garde and LFI have been documented by French media Le Canard Enchaîné and Le Nouvel Observateur (July 2024), which noted that “in recent months, La Jeune Garde, now established in several cities across France, had placed itself at the service of LFI, overseeing meetings by their leaders in universities, where the situation in the Gaza Strip had been widely discussed.”
But the political controversy surrounding Quentin Deranque’s death has extended well beyond the National Assembly and LFI, implicating the city of Lyon itself, governed since 2020 by Green mayor Grégory Doucet.
The first spark came a week after Deranque’s death, when Doucet refused to display his portrait on the façade of the Hôtel de Ville, a gesture requested in a public opinion piece by Jean-Michel Aulas, mayoral candidate. “Mr. Aulas’s request is nothing short of indecent,” Doucet told BFMTV on February 19.
The controversy deepened with revelations that the city of Lyon had worked with the Young Guard. A city spokesperson told Brussels Signal that contacts with La Jeune Garde had indeed taken place “to obtain information about recurring far-right violence in the Vieux Lyon district.” However, the spokesperson insisted that these exchanges were limited to “informal and non-contractual” consultations and ended in 2022.
Following Quentin Deranque’s death, Marine Tondelier, leader of the Greens, came under criticism after it was recalled that she had co-signed a May 2025 tribune in the communist newspaper L’Humanité opposing the dissolution of La Jeune Garde.
However, the controversy has engulfed the entire left-wing political spectrum. During the 2024 legislative elections, the coalition Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), which included LFI, the Greens, the Socialist Party, and the French Communist Party, displayed La Jeune Garde’s name among its listed supporters on its website and on some of its official mobilisation kits.
Following the death of Quentin Deranque, former Socialist president and current MP François Hollande also came under criticism for having been elected as part of the NFP, since it had publicly disclosed its support from La Jeune Garde.
The death of Quentin Deranque