Police arrest 11 in the beating death of a far-right student in France

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Police arrest 11 in the beating death of a far-right student in France

2026-02-18 23:05 Last Updated At：23:10

PARIS (AP) — French police investigating the beating of a far-right militant who died of brain injuries have arrested 11 people, prosecutors said Wednesday, in a case adding fuel to long-standing divides in French politics ahead of presidential elections in 2027.

Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old student described as a fervent nationalist, died in a hospital on Saturday. He was beaten two days earlier by a group of people in the city of Lyon, in fighting that erupted between far-left and far-right supporters on the margins of a student meeting where a far-left lawmaker, Rima Hassan, was a keynote speaker.

An autopsy found that Deranque suffered a fractured skull and fatal brain injuries, according to Lyon's prosecutor, Thierry Dran. He launched the police investigation for homicide and other potential criminal charges. Dran's office said police detained a man and a woman on Wednesday morning, with nine other people taken into custody on Tuesday night.

Hassan, a French-Palestinian who was born in a Syrian refugee camp, is a European Parliament lawmaker for the far-left France Unbowed party. In a post on X after the attack on Deranque but before he died of his injuries, Hassan expressed “horror” over the violence and condemned it.

Deranque's death triggered a storm of recriminations, mostly blaming France Unbowed. Its opponents accuse it of fomenting violence and tensions with its combative far-left politics, which include fierce criticism of Israel.

The party is led by veteran hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former Trotskyist who stood for the presidency in 2012, 2017 and 2022 and failed to advance to the decisive run-off round. He is preparing for another expected run next year, when President Emmanuel Macron 's second and last term ends.

Mélenchon insisted Tuesday that France Unbowed bore no blame for the tragedy in Lyon, saying: “We have absolutely nothing to do, either directly or indirectly, with the death of this young Deranque.”

But the 11 people in police custody include the parliamentary aide of a France Unbowed lawmaker, French media reported. The lawmaker, Raphaël Arnault, confirmed the aide's arrest in a post on X without giving the cause. Arnault said he is ending the aide's contract.

Violence has long been a persistent feature of French politics. Far-left and far-right factions harbor long-standing, intense and sometimes violent disregard for each other, although deaths in clashes between them have been rare in recent decades.

France is holding municipal elections next month. With campaigning in full swing, opponents of France Unbowed on the right and far-right laid blame for Deranque's death on Mélenchon's party, accusing it of fueling violence and appealing to voters not to support it.

Criticism also came from prominent figures on the left, including former French President François Hollande. He said the mainstream left, including his Socialist Party, must not team up again with Mélenchon’s party for the upcoming elections, as they did in the past.

“The relationship with France Unbowed is over,” he said.

Public health, green groups sue EPA over repeal of rule supporting climate protections

WASHINGTON (AP) — A coalition of health and environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, challenging the rescinding of a scientific finding that has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

A rule finalized by the EPA last week revoked a 2009 government declaration known as the endangerment finding that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. The Obama-era finding is the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.

The repeal eliminates all greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks and could unleash a broader undoing of climate regulations on stationary sources such as power plants and oil and gas facilities, experts say.

The legal challenge, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, asserts that the EPA’s rescission of the endangerment finding is unlawful. The 2009 finding supported common sense safeguards to cut climate pollution, including from cars and trucks, the lawsuit says. Clean vehicle standards imposed by the Biden administration were set to "deliver the single biggest cut to U.S. carbon pollution in history, save lives and save Americans hard-earned money on gas,'' the coalition said in filing the case.

After nearly two decades of scientific evidence supporting the 2009 finding, "the agency cannot credibly claim that the body of work is now incorrect,'' said Brian Lynk, a senior attorney at the Environmental Law & Policy Center.

“This reckless and legally untenable decision creates immediate uncertainty for businesses, guarantees prolonged legal battles and undermines the stability of federal climate regulations," Lynk said.

The case was brought by groups including the American Public Health Association, American Lung Association, Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment and Physicians for Social Responsibility, along with environmental groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club.

The suit named EPA and its administrator Lee Zeldin as defendants.

President Donald Trump said in announcing the repeal that it was "the single largest deregulatory action in American history, by far,” while Zeldin called the endangerment finding “the Holy Grail of federal regulatory overreach.”

The endangerment finding “led to trillions of dollars in regulations that strangled entire sectors of the United States economy, including the American auto industry,” Zeldin said. “The Obama and Biden administrations used it to steamroll into existence a left-wing wish list of costly climate policies, electric vehicle mandates and other requirements that assaulted consumer choice and affordability.”

Environmental groups described the move as the single biggest attack in U.S. history against federal authority to address climate change. Evidence backing up the endangerment finding has only grown stronger in the 17 years since it was approved, they said.

Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is legally required to limit emissions of any air pollutant that causes or contributes to "air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”

In 2007, the Supreme Court held in Massachusetts v. EPA that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are “air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act and told EPA to determine, based on the science, if that pollution endangers human health and welfare. EPA made that determination in 2009, which led to new standards for vehicles. It built on that finding when issuing other standards.

The EPA’s own analysis found that eliminating the vehicle standards will increase gas prices and force Americans to spend more on fuel, advocates said.

EPA’s repeal of the endangerment finding, along with the elimination of safeguards to limit vehicle emissions, "marks a complete dereliction of the agency’s mission to protect people’s health and its legal obligations under the Clean Air Act,'' said Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is part of the suit.

“This shameful and dangerous action ... is rooted in falsehoods, not facts, and is at complete odds with the public interest and the best available science,” Goldman said. Heat-trapping emissions and global average temperatures are rising — primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels — contributing to a mounting human and economic toll across the world, she said.