Public Prosecutor Thierry Dran at a press conference on the investigation into the death of Quentin Deranque, at a court in the French city of Lyon, on February 16, 2026. OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE/AFP
A French prosecutor confirmed on Monday, February 17, that the assault last Thursday in Lyon of Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old far-right activist who died two days later, was of extreme violence. Prosecutor Thierry Dran said an autopsy conducted on Monday morning revealed that the young man had received "mainly injuries to the head." He sustained "major cranioencephalic trauma" and "a right temporal fracture," said the forensic experts, who judged that "these injuries were beyond all possible treatment and fatal in the short term."
The severity of the violent attack and its fatal consequences led the prosecutor's office to open an investigation for "intentional homicide," aggravated by three circumstances: the act being committed by a group, the perpetrators having concealed their faces, and the use of improvised weapons. The seemingly organized nature of the incident has also prompted the prosecutor's office to broaden the investigation to include criminal conspiracy charges.
Dran laid out the timeline of the incident, based solely on the facts established in the investigation. On Thursday, around 5:30 pm, seven young women from the ultraright group Némésis brandished a banner behind the Institute of Political Studies (IEP), a university on Rue Raoul-Servant in Lyon, to protest the appearance of radical left-wing MEP Rima Hassan (La France Insoumise, LFI) at a conference. "They had previously asked a certain number of their friends to come help them in case of violence. Nevertheless, these friends remained at a distance," said the prosecutor.
