With France in Turmoil, Macron Tells the World to Stop Talking About Quentin
24th February 2026
Emmanuel Macron appears to want the world to stop talking about the brutal beating in Lyon—by leftist activists—that led to the death of Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old patriotic activist. And it’s no wonder, given that even establishment publications say it could result in a significant political shift—“completing,” as the BBC put it, “the ‘de-demonisation’ of the Rassemblement National so fervently pursued by its leader Marine Le Pen, and making new ‘demons’ out of the radical left.”
As such, the president’s team said on Sunday that it would summon the U.S. ambassador to Paris over comments made by Donald Trump’s administration about the killing.
The U.S. Embassy in Paris on Friday shared a statement from Trump’s Department of State Bureau of Counterterrorism, pointing to information that Deranque was “killed by far-left militants,” and that this should “concern us all.”