PARIS: Eleven people including an aide to a French far-left lawmaker were arrested in France overnight and early on Wednesday on suspicion of involvement in the killing of a far-right activist.
Shortly after the announcement, the Paris headquarters of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party received a bomb threat and had to be evacuated until the all-clear was given when police secured the scene.
Far-right activist Quentin Deranque, 23, died on Saturday after being beaten by hard-left activists outside a conference center in Lyon where Rima Hassan, an LFI member of the European Parliament, was speaking.
Videos of the confrontation were widely shared on social media. Hassan and other members of the LFI have condemned the killing.
The Lyon prosecutors’ office, which has opened a murder investigation, said 11 suspects have been detained so far. Among them is an aide to LFI lawmaker Raphael Arnault, who said on Tuesday that the aide had “stopped all parliamentary work.”
