France is preparing to call in the United States ambassador after unusually direct public statements from Washington about the killing of a far-right activist in Lyon pushed a domestic criminal case into the realm of diplomacy.
“We are going to summon the United States ambassador to France since the US embassy in France commented on this tragedy, … which concerns the national community,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in remarks to Le Monde, France Inter and France Info. “We reject any attempt to use this tragedy … for political purposes.”
The French government has not yet said when Ambassador Charles Kushner will be formally summoned, but the decision signals irritation in Paris over what it sees as outside commentary on a highly sensitive national issue. The death of 23-year-old Quentin Deranque — who died from head injuries after being beaten on the margins of a February 12 protest — has already exposed the country’s charged political climate ahead of next year’s presidential election.
About 3,000 people joined a march in Lyon organised by far-right groups to honour Deranque, as President Emmanuel Macron called for calm. Macron himself cannot run again, but the incident has fed into a broader debate about political violence and the tone of public life in France.
The diplomatic friction began after senior figures in the Trump administration framed the killing in ideological terms. Sarah Rogers, the US undersecretary for public diplomacy, wrote that the case showed “why we treat political violence – terrorism – so harshly” and added:
“Once you decide to kill people for their opinions instead of persuade them, you’ve opted out of civilization.”
The State Department’s counterterrorism bureau went further, saying: “Violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety,” a message amplified by the US embassy in French.
For Paris, the issue is less the content than the principle: a criminal investigation on French soil being publicly interpreted through a foreign political lens.
The case has also complicated relations with Rome. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a close ally of Donald Trump, described the killing as “a wound for all of Europe”, prompting Macron to criticise her for intervening in what he considers a domestic matter.
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