French President Emmanuel Macron told Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to stop commenting on France’s internal affairs on Thursday, after she condemned the fatal beating of a far-right activist in Lyon.
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Quentin Deranque, 23, died on 14 February from head injuries sustained when masked attackers beat and kicked him during clashes outside a Lyon university two days earlier. Prosecutors said seven people will face murder charges, including a parliamentary assistant to a lawmaker from the left-wing France Unbowed (LFI) party.
Meloni wrote on social media that Deranque’s death “by groups linked to left-wing extremism” was “a wound for all of Europe”. She condemned what she called “a climate of ideological hatred sweeping several nations”.
Macron responded sharply. “I’m always struck by how people who are nationalists, who don’t want to be bothered in their own country, are always the first ones to comment on what’s happening in other countries,” he told reporters. “Let everyone stay at home and the sheep will be well looked after.”
Asked if he was referring to Meloni, Macron replied: “You got that right.”
The Italian prime minister’s office said it was “astonished” by Macron’s comments. Sources said Meloni had simply expressed condolences and was not interfering in French affairs.
What happened in Lyon
Deranque was attacked on 12 February on the sidelines of a demonstration by nationalist feminists at Sciences Po Lyon, where LFI MEP Rima Hassan was holding an event. The video showed several masked people kicking and punching a man on the ground.
Lyon prosecutor Thierry Dran said at least six people took part in the attack. Deranque suffered fatal damage to his skull and brain from repeated blows and died in the hospital two days later.
Eleven people were initially detained. Most belonged to radical left-wing movements, according to judicial sources. Two men have been charged with murder and placed in pre-trial detention.
Jacques-Elie Favrot, an assistant to LFI lawmaker Raphael Arnault, was charged with complicity through instigation. Favrot’s lawyer said his client acknowledged being present and committing violence but denied delivering the fatal blows.
Arnault said earlier this week that Favrot had stopped all parliamentary work. The lawmaker co-founded La Jeune Garde, an anti-fascist youth group that has been linked to the suspects, which France banned in 2025.
Political fallout
The killing has hurt LFI and allowed the far-right National Rally (RN) to depict itself as a victim of deadly extremist violence ahead of municipal elections in March and the 2027 presidential race.
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin called on Arnault to “draw the consequences” if the judiciary finds serious evidence concerning him or his aides. La France Insoumise coordinator Manuel Bompard said Arnault would not be suspended or excluded from the party.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the killing was “a serious matter that concerns us all”. He compared it to Italy’s “Years of Lead” from the late 1960s to the 1980s, when armed groups from both left and right carried out bombings and assassinations.
“There have been many Quentins in Italy, some during the darkest periods of the Republic,” Tajani wrote on social media. “Condemning acts like this serves to prevent Italy from falling back into such a dark past.”
Meloni later told Sky TG24 that Macron had misinterpreted her comments. “I’m sorry that Macron experienced it as interference,” she said. “My focus is not on France but on the risks of polarisation in society.”
A lawyer for Deranque’s parents said they called for “calm and restraint” and condemned “all forms of political violence”.
