Political polarization is sharpening in , one month before the municipal and fourteen months before the presidential elections of April 2027, in which the French is said to be dominant.
The death of Kendan Derank, a 23-year-old student in Lyon, who was beaten to death on February 12 in a fight that broke out following a lecture by the far-left Independent France (LFI) MEP Rima Hassan at Lyon’s Science Po school, further darkens the country’s political landscape.
As Monde noted in its editorial yesterday, “at a time when, in France, the executive power is paralyzed by the loss of its parliamentary majority, and the National Assembly (Parliament) too often offers a spectacle of disorder, the Lyon drama reinforces the need to awaken the democratic sentiment of the citizens.”
Suspects linked to the Far Left
Yesterday, five of the six main suspects considered responsible for the murder of the 23-year-old student were officially identified, but none of them have been arrested.
Some of the suspects are connected to the Far Left while several were registered by the Authorities, in the special security files with the letter “S” (from Sécurité=Security), in which those who are potential threats to public security, or are related to terrorist networks, extreme ideologies or violent groups are registered.
“Young Guard” of the Far Left
The suspects in Derank’s murder are said to be classified as ‘S’ because of their involvement in the ‘Jeune Garde’ – ‘Young Guard’, an ‘anti-fascist’ organization co-founded by Insubordinate France MP Raphael Arnaud.
The organization was officially disbanded, in June 2025, by Bruno Retagios, the then Minister of the Interior. The Lyon prosecutor’s office ordered an investigation into the organization’s role in Derank’s death.
A quiet student searching for his identity
Those close to him describe Derank as a quiet and hardworking student, dedicated to helping the poor, without radical tendencies. His friends reported that he was a bookworm, a devout Catholic, that he read the writings of Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, and that he was a young man in search of his identity.
On the day of his death, he was near the Lyon School of Political Science to defend the girl members of the nationalist group Nemesis, who identify as feminists and who were protesting against the “Islamofascism” expressed by Rima Hassan, MEP from Insubordinate France, who, that day, was giving a speech at Sciences Po on Gaza, Palestine and Israel.
Hasan, of Palestinian origin known for her inflammatory statements, for her refusal to condemn the attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, is now at the center of a political storm, and is trying to distance herself from the members of the anti-fascist organization “Young Guard” who attended the event, with the intention of guarding her.
Crisis in the center-left coalition
However, the crisis that caused the “lynching”, as characterized, by some media, of the young Kendan Derank and which led to his death, is not expected to be resolved immediately as it creates serious confrontations within the French center-left opposition as well.
Already the left-wing MEP Raphael Glicksman, who may run for the presidency of France in the 2027 elections, and who works with the French Socialist Party, in the opposition center-left coalition, which includes France Insubordinate, the Environmentalists, the Communists, has criticized “all political leaders who incite hatred”, including those of Insubordinate France, and its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, MEP Rima Hassan. and the MPs of the party, Thomas Port and Raphael Arno, “who”, as he pointed out, “continually add fuel to the fire”.
In contrast, Socialist leader Olivier Faure did not join in the criticism of Insubordinate France. The party’s leadership expressed its support for the family of Kedan Derank, however, refraining from commenting on the ongoing investigation.
Difficult to reverse the political climate
Many analysts point out that Derank’s murder – in his submission, the prosecutor of Lyon called for an investigation into manslaughter – is not an isolated incident but is indicative of the extreme polarization prevailing in France.
Speaking yesterday in the National Assembly, the centrist Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecorny, asked the MPs for “a moment of truth”: “Either we fight and deny violence or we don’t fight it. There are no double standards – this applies to everyone!”, he emphasized, implying that violence has no color or political sign.
