PARIS: France's far-right leader Jordan Bardella on Wednesday accused President Emmanuel Macron and his allies of helping strengthen the hard-left as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed shock at the fatal beating of a far-right activist blamed on the ultra-left.

Quentin Deranque, 23, died after sustaining a severe brain injury when he was attacked by at least six people last week.

The attack happened on the sidelines of a far-right protest against a hard-left politician speaking at a university in the southeastern city of Lyon.

Far right, hard left tensions

The incident has fueled tension between France's far right and hard left ahead of municipal elections in March and the 2027 presidential race, in which the far-right National Rally (RN) party is seen as having its best chance yet at winning the top job.

RN head Jordan Bardella, 30, accused Macron and high-profile centrist politicians former prime ministers Gabriel Attal and Edouard Philippe of having "opened the doors of the National Assembly to the worst thugs of the far left."

"The president bears moral and political responsibility for the institutionalisation of the far left and extreme left, particularly in the National Assembly," he said.

‘Protective barrier’

In snap parliamentary polls in 2024, Macron's supporters and the left, including the hard-left, had allied against the far right, in a strategy called "cordon sanitaire" (which roughly translates as "protective barrier") aimed at barring the extreme right from power.

Seeking to turn the tables on his rivals, Bardella called for the creation of "a cordon sanitaire" to isolate the LFI and "keep it away from institutions, whether in the National Assembly, where its deputies sit on numerous committees, or in view of the upcoming municipal elections."

'Wound for all of Europe'

In Italy, Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, said the killing of Deranque "shocks and deeply saddens us."

"The death of a boy just over 20 years old, attacked by groups linked to left-wing extremism and overwhelmed by a climate of ideological hatred that is sweeping across several nations, is a wound for all of Europe," she said on social media.

Earlier Wednesday, socialist lawmaker and former president Francois Hollande was the latest left-wing politician to reject another alliance with LFI.

"For municipal elections, there can be no alliance between the Socialists or parties of the reformist left and LFI in the second round, that's clear," he told broadcaster BFMTV.

While the government has singled out the LFI and an anti-fascist youth group called La Jeune Garde (Young Guard), prosecutors have declined to comment on those claims, only specifying the incident was being investigated as a voluntary homicide and aggravated assault.

Threatening messages

LFI party members say they have received threatening messages since Deranque's death.

"Since the tragedy in Lyon, I've been receiving a flood of racist insults and death threats," said Lahouaria Addouche, who is running for mayor in Lille.

The national headquarters of LFI had to be evacuated following a bomb threat, party coordinator Manuel Bompard said on X, before the building was declared safe.

South of Paris, a 28-year-old far-right activist was arrested after social media threats, including of decapitation, against one Socialist and two LFI candidates, the prosecutor in the town of Auxerre said.

Parliament assistant fired

On Wednesday, Lyon's prosecutor, Thierry Dran, announced the latest arrests related to Deranque's death.

A man suspected of having a direct link to the violence, and his partner, suspected of having helped him evade justice, were taken into custody as part of the investigation for "intentional homicide", Dran said.

Six of the other detainees are suspected of having participated in the beating and three of having helped them, a source following the case said.

An assistant to Raphael Arnault, a member of parliament from LFI, was among the first four detained, the source said.

Arnault said he was firing the assistant.

An anti-immigration collective called Nemesis said Deranque had been at the protest in Lyon to protect its members.

Nemesis has blamed the killing on La Jeune Garde co-founded by Arnault before he was elected to parliament.

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French far-right leader accuses Macron, allies of strengthening hard-left after activist killed