France and U.S. Spar Over Left-Wing Violence

By Henry Srebrnik, Fredericton Daily Gleaner

Police in France arrested nine people on Feb. 17 in connection with the death of a 23-year-old student in Lyon. Most are members of the “Young Guard,” an extremist splinter group of Antifa. They also appear linked to Jean-Luc Melenchon’s left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI).

Quentin Deranque was a right-wing nationalist who had been providing security to a feminist group who were protesting the appearance of Rima Hassan at the Institute of Political Studies in Lyon. He was beaten to death. Hassan is a rising star in the LFI and has made a name for herself as a ferocious critic of Israel.

There had been scuffles outside the venue and the violence spilled out into the surrounding streets. Deranque and a couple of other nationalists were set upon by several masked individuals. Such were the ferocity of the injuries inflicted on Deranque that he died in hospital. On learning of the arrest of Favrot, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu posted a message on X telling LFI that it “needed to clean out its ranks.”

For many years Melenchon has turned a blind eye to the activities of the Young Guard, which was founded in Lyon in 2018 by Raphael Arnault. Arnault himself has a history of violence, but that didn’t trouble LFI when he was selected as a candidate for the 2024 parliamentary election. He won his seat with the help of the centre-left Socialist party, who urged voters to cast their ballot for him to thwart Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.

But the killing also divided Washington and Paris, after Sarah Rogers, the U.S. State Department under-secretary for public diplomacy, in criticizing the murder, warned about the spread of far-left violence in France. In an interview on Feb. 22, France’s Foreign Minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, scolded her for wading into a matter that “concerns only our national community.”

Barrot accused Washington of trying to make political capital out of Deranque’s death and added that France has “no lessons to receive” from outsiders on political violence. To underline their anger, the French government summoned U.S. ambassador Charles Kushner for a meeting -- but he didn’t show because of “personal commitments.”

In response, on Feb. 23 France temporarily barred Kushner, the father of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, from meeting with any French officials until he clarified Washington’s position. “When these explanations have taken place, then the U.S. ambassador in France will naturally regain access to members of the French government,” Barrot told the broadcaster France Info. Until then, the ban “will naturally affect his capacity to exercise his mission in our country.”

An explanation did come a day later, when Kushner finally called Barrot, who told the American envoy that France would not accept “any form of interference or manipulation of its national public debate,” according to a Foreign Ministry official. “The ambassador took note, expressed his desire not to interfere in our public debate.” As to Kushner’s initial no-show when summoned, Pascal Confavreux made allowances for the American real-estate magnate, who only took up his functions as ambassador to Paris last July, being relatively new to the more genteel world of diplomacy.

(Actually, France had previously criticized Kushner last August after he accused the French government of fuelling antisemitism through its criticisms of Israel.)

Of course that was itself a diplomatic answer to smooth things over. The truth is that no one wanted a diplomatic rupture in this of all years. The date of the June the G7 summit of leading economic countries in Evian was moved to allow for Trump’s birthday. This year also marks the 250th anniversary of what Washington describes as its oldest alliance, as America celebrates the Declaration of Independence. “I know it’s a very important date for the U.S., also for us.  And so there are ups and downs in such a relationship,” Confavreux said.

But President Trump and his allies have long expressed their support for the political right. This was made official in the United States National Security Strategy (NSS) published last December. The document suggests that there is a real risk of Europe facing “civilizational erasure” because of its migration policies and states that the “growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.”

The Trump administration has been active behind the scenes too, according to Magali Lafourcade, the secretary general of France’s human rights commission (CNCDH). Last April, she raised the alarm about foreign interference with the French Foreign Ministry. Actually, Barrot had already announced a new strategy against foreign interference on Jan. 29, 2025 – just one week after Trump’s inauguration.

The tone of French foreign policy has been toughening in keeping with Washington’s rhetoric. In his New Year’s address to the armed forces, President Emmanuel Macron used strong language. “To remain free, one must be feared, and to be feared, one must be powerful,” he told them. To make his point, Macron visited the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, deployed to the Mediterranean following Iranian drone strikes on Cyprus March 9.

The French president wants more nuclear warheads as Europe becomes increasingly wary of its U.S. ally, and he will extend the deterrent to cover other European countries, It would be the first time since 1992 that the French arsenal is expanded.