Autonomies

The themes which monastic discipline assigned to friars for meditation were designed to turn them away from the world and its affairs. The thoughts which we are developing here originate from similar considerations. At a moment when the politicians in whom the opponents of Fascism had placed their hopes are prostrate and confirm their defeat by betraying their own cause, these observations are intended to disintangle the political worldlings from the snares in which the traitors have entrapped them. Our consideration proceeds from the insight that the politicians’ stubborn faith in progress, their confidence in their ‘mass basis’, and, finally, their servile integration in an uncontrollable apparatus have been three aspects of the same thing. It seeks to convey an idea of the high price our accustomed thinking will have to pay for a conception of history that avoids any complicity with the thinking to which these politicians continue to adhere.

Walter Benjamin, On the concept of history, thesis 10

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Killing of neo-Nazi in Lyon: “Antifascism is now being exploited”

The death of Quentin Deranque is being used as a pretext for equating fascism and antifascism

Rozenn Le Carboulec, Basta!

It is a tragedy that has taken on a highly political dimension. On Saturday, February 14, Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old far-right activist, died after being brutally beaten on the sidelines of a conference given by MEP Rima Hassan of La France Insoumise (LFI), which was taking place at Sciences Po Lyon university. The young man had reportedly been recruited to provide security for activists from the identitarian collective Némésis, who had planned a demonstration in front of the university building. While an investigation for voluntary homicide has been opened, the hypothesis of a street clash between militant groups – far-right on one side and anti-fascists on the other – appears to be confirmed.

Around ten people have been arrested in the Lyon area, Isère, and Drôme, and taken into custody in Lyon, as part of the preliminary investigation opened for “murder,” “criminal conspiracy,” and “aggravated assault due to the use of weapons by association and the concealment of the face.” Several of the suspects are on the “S” watchlist for political radicalisation, due to their membership in the Jeune Garde (Young Guard), an anti-fascist group co-founded in 2018 by Raphaël Arnault, who was subsequently elected to parliament under the LFI (La France Insoumise) banner in 2024. Among those arrested is Jacques-Elie Favrot, a parliamentary assistant to Raphaël Arnault.

Officially dissolved in June 2025 at the request of Bruno Retailleau, then Minister of the Interior, the Jeune Garde group filed an appeal with the Council of State, which is still under review by the judges. Because of its direct links with the Jeune Garde, LFI has also been heavily targeted in recent days. The party and its representatives are being held responsible for this tragedy by the entire far right, part of the left, and the government itself. On Monday, February 16, government spokesperson Maud Bregeon stated on BFM that La France Insoumise (LFI) bore “a moral responsibility for the political climate and the climate of violence.”

Meanwhile, far-right media outlets within the Bolloré sphere are having a field day, asserting that “antifascism is terrorism like any other.” A month before the municipal elections, political parties are passing the buck for an escalation of violence, for which the “ultra-left” is supposedly responsible, and antifascism – a political practice that aims, in the name of equality, to combat the hateful, racist, or authoritarian ideas embodied by the far right – is seen as one of its dangerous symptoms.

From: Freedom News (23/02/2026)

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Death of a fascist in Lyon: the urgency of anti-fascism is greater than ever

Following the death of a fascist activist in Lyon, the far right and its allies are seeking to exploit this event to criminalise anti-fascism. At the same time, the institutional left is content to condemn, in general terms, “all violence”. More than ever, we must stand together to assert the urgency of popular anti-fascism and the imperative for our class to be able to defend itself against the violence of the far right.

On the evening of Thursday 12 February, Quentin Deranque, a fascist activist, was hospitalised in serious condition. A member of the neo-fascist group Les Allobroges Bourgoin and the Némésis security service, he had also been involved with Action Française. His death was confirmed 48 hours later, a few hours before the press revealed testimonies from shopkeepers and residents corroborating a video filmed from a window showing a beating following a pitched battle. Serious journalistic investigations, which do not simply repeat the narrative of the far right, are still ongoing and many grey areas remain to be clarified. In any case, this death cannot be examined politically outside the context that led to the event.

For years, numerous associations, trade unions, political parties, residents and shopkeepers in Lyon have been mobilising against the increase in violence committed by the far right. How many attacks on people of colour? On LGBTI people? On trade unionists? On community or political activists? On local residents? How many beatings? How many armed attacks? How many hospitalisations?

For years, we have collectively warned about the establishment of fascist groups, with a high profile, training in a combat hall adjacent to the La Traboule bar, or in paramilitary summer camps, about the all too frequent demonstrations inciting hatred, but also about the complicity of the public authorities. Indeed, the police are regularly absent from events such as Thursday’s, while far-right conferences are always protected by a particularly large security presence.

While Nemesis activists are creating a buzz by organising media “happenings”, neo-fascist activists in Lyon are preparing to kill and die for their cause. Their leaders are training radicalised and disciplined fighters to send them to the front line to confront the security services that all social movements in Lyon are forced to put in place to protect themselves.

It is obvious that, in this context, anti-fascist groups have formed over the years in Lyon to participate in collective and popular self-defence.

For the far right, the fate of the young fascist activist is an opportunity to construct the figure of a martyr and to redouble their violence. In the days following Thursday evening, numerous premises belonging to various trade union and left-wing political organisations throughout France were ransacked, notably those of LFI but also those of Solidaires Rhône, as well as La Plume Noire, a self-managed bookshop run by the UCL in Lyon, which had already been attacked numerous times. Swastikas were spray-painted on Place de la République in Paris, and Celtic crosses throughout France. Threats and calls for physical violence have multiplied against activists, some of whom have been publicly identified and thrown to the wolves. What the far-right sphere now hopes is to be able to carry out their abuses with renewed intensity while relying on the false narrative of “far-left terrorism” in order to gain political support.

Left-wing political parties and figures who have denounced “all forms of physical violence” have fallen into the trap set by the far right. This blissfully pacifist discourse equates fascist violence, which has been going on for more than fifteen years in Lyon, targeting everything that displeases white supremacists, with an event that fuels a detestable political campaign to criminalise anti-fascism. Jean Messiha calls for the “eradication of anti-fascist scum”, the far-right sphere calls for more Clément Mérics, right-wing and far-right politicians call for anti-fascist groups to be classified as terrorists. And what does the left do? It sends its thoughts to the victim’s “friends” and criminalises anti-fascism. Some even go so far as to empty the word “fascist” of all political substance by making it a simple synonym for “violence” that could then be attributed to anyone, including anti-fascists.

The UCL will not succumb to this comfortable but inconsequential demagoguery. We strongly reiterate a stubborn reality: it is primarily the far right that kills and creates this climate of violence, in Lyon, in France, and throughout the world. We strongly denounce the reversal of the situation that the far right is managing to impose by talking about a “lynching”, a term referring to mass racist attacks targeting black people in the United States. Using it to describe the blows received by a white supremacist is a deadly and racist reversal.

Yes, the far right kills: the drowned victims of the Deule, Brahim Bouraam, Clément Méric, Federico Aramburu, Mahamadou Cissé, Djamel Bendjaballah, Rochdi Lakhsassi, Hichem Miraoui shot five times in Puget-sur-Argens in 2025… Should the people murdered have been far-right to warrant a national tribute? Where are the condolences for the victims and the national tributes when Frédéric Grochain, a Kanak political prisoner, dies in his cell thousands of kilometres from his country on the 6th February? Where are the tears of the parties and the media who mourned Quentin Deranque over the racist murder of Ismaël Aali in early 2026 in the same city?

The UCL defends a social and popular anti-fascism based on the construction of mass social movements, whose strength lies in numbers, not violence. However, renouncing confrontation on principle means condemning oneself to the impossibility of campaigning in the public sphere. If we renounce protecting our demonstrations, our public meetings, our leafleting, then we renounce political intervention, because the far right will not renounce attacking us, and it is in this that it cannot be considered a political ideology like any other.

By condemning “antifas”, these elements of the parliamentary left are crying wolf. They are putting themselves in a position where they will no longer be able to defend anti-fascist movements threatened by state repression.

Yet, now more than ever, we need to stand together and hold the line.

Before fascists, we must not take a step back.

Union communiste libertaire, 17th of February 2026

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Affirming our anti-fascism: the duty of the moment

Novelists, historians, writers, sociologists and elected officials: 180 prominent figures are calling for action against the exploitation of Quentin Deranque’s death by the far right, the right wing, the government and the mainstream media, who are seeking to silence the left and reverse the roles of fascists and anti-fascists.

We are living in dangerous times, with supremacism, the far right and neo-fascism gaining strength all over the world. Unfortunately, France is no exception to this global trend. We are witnessing not only a rise in institutional far-right politics, but also a shift to the right in media and political discourse in general, as well as an increase in street violence. We can confront this danger if the anti-fascist camp stands together and is determined to prevent the country from sinking into the worst.

In this respect, we are at a turning point. On 12 February, a tragedy took place in Lyon: the death of a far-right activist who had clearly come to take part in a brawl against anti-fascist activists. The violent death of a 23-year-old is always unacceptable, and we were horrified by it. Since this tragedy, we have been stunned to witness attempts to impose a veritable iron curtain on the left and anti-fascist forces, whether institutional or social movements.

The far right in all its forms has imposed a single narrative establishing a continuum without nuance between those responsible for Quentin Deranque’s death, all anti-fascist activists and La France Insoumise. This interpretation of events has been taken up without any critical distance by the mainstream media, the government and a large part of the political class. Allowing the supremacist camp to dictate its interpretation of events in this way is irresponsible. It plays into the hands of the far right and contributes to a manoeuvre that aims, for the first time since the Liberation, to reverse the roles of fascists and anti-fascists.

We are sounding the alarm: historically, the far right has often exploited violence such as this to bring society to heel. In 1930, the death of Nazi activist Horst Wessel, a member of the SA, was turned into a myth by Goebbels to serve the victimisation of the Nazi party. Of course, this sequence has its own historical specificity and cannot simply be superimposed on our contemporary reality. But closer to home, let us remember how, in the United States, Trump and his supporters exploited the assassination of Charlie Kirk to repress social movements and officially classify anti-fascists as a terrorist movement.

Our duty is not to cry wolf in order to overwhelm the anti-fascist movement or La France Insoumise. The urgent need is to stand together to reaffirm a reality that all the figures show: political violence comes first and foremost from the far right. Ninety per cent of political assassinations between 1986 and 2021 were carried out by this camp.

Since 2022, 12 people have been killed by the far right in our country. Even in recent days, political and trade union offices, bars and places of social gathering have been targeted, leaving several people injured. We must stand together in large numbers to reject the demonisation of anti-fascism and its corollary, the de-demonisation of fascism.

From: l’Humanité, (20/02/2026)

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It is certain that many people consider elections to be the solution to anti-fascism. In this context, being able to argue in a concerted manner that elections have almost never stopped fascism and that we cannot rely on them, we must mobilise a form of self-defence and collective self-management of the community in the face of fascism, is a kind of anarchist intervention in the discourse of anti-fascism.

Mark Bray (interview for the Union communiste libertaire, 19/02/2026)

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The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “state of emergency” in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm. The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are “still” possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge—unless it is the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable.

Walter Benjamin, On the concept of history, thesis 8