French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, February 14, urged calm and restraint after the fatal beating of a 23-year-old French youth aligned with the far-right on the sidelines of a conference by a hard-left lawmaker in the southeastern city of Lyon.
The death of the young man – identified only as Quentin – has intensified tensions between France’s far-right and radical left who are both eyeing 2027 presidential elections.
He had been hospitalized in Lyon on Thursday after being attacked while providing what his supporters said was security for a protest against an appearance by hard-left MEP Rima Hassan at the Lyon branch of the Sciences Po university.
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The man who died was a far right militant, member of a group who regularly descends in the street to beat everyone not looking like their idea of a French.
I don’t think killing people is a solution. But if you think violence is sometimes justified against some people, this dude was as close as it gets.
“The means are the end,” to quote a line from The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin (anarchist and legendary fiction writer). While I agree that we need most parts if the left for revolution (Andor does a decent job demonstrating this), I’m highly skeptical that lasting change can be built on revolution that is primarily enacted through violence.
How many incidents does it take before it reaches “primarily”? Because this is one incident.