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.

  • arcine@jlai.lu
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    15 hours ago

    Unfortunately, optics are incredibly important to win public opinion. As a radical leftist myself, I have little to no compassion for the man who died ; nonetheless I hope this doesn’t start a pattern.

    Many people see these things as entirely vibes-based, so if we don’t look like the good guys, to many people that’s enough to decide we aren’t the good guys.

    • KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works
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      9 hours ago

      I think the world needs less radical left and more militant left.

      We’ve tried talking for the last 80 years or so. Its not working so well. So maybe we need to bring back the violence that defeated fascism last time.

      • ameancow@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        If you’re going to adopt violence, you have to target the exact right people or you just plunge yourself into a long, dumb spiral of public outrage until whatever the organization originally meant to accomplish is lost in the news cycle of violence. People won’t remember what you represented, only what you did. And you can’t fix that with messaging, it’s just not how it works.

        I can name a dozen different iconic seditious or rebellious groups in recent history and for every name read, you will see in your mind’s eye terrorism and bombings and violence, not what that group wanted to accomplish or what their goals were.

        I get gnashing teeth reminding people of this fact, but Mussolini was not defeated by a plucky band of rebels who dragged him out of his bunker, he was arrested by his own king and government and handed over the opposition. We still need political action or we’re just embracing mindless chaos, we will need politics to both secure an actual victory and we will need politics to deal with the millions of people who didn’t vote for any of your actions but will still live next to us after.

    • sircac@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      Mmh… I think that tribal identification is a basic problem (the us vs their conundrum): the danger is obvious, admit this general simplified view to conform the “only two collectives” and judge them by choiced individuals and not by the root ideas and what they bring, if humans cannot overcome this instinct they will remain ants that follow queens for no good reason…

      • arcine@jlai.lu
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        11 hours ago

        The problem of course is that, bad as it may be to think this way, people (including me !) absolutely do think this way by default, unless consciously making the effort not to.

        Maybe this can be deconstructed, but until then we need a good dose of “Realpolitik” that takes those biases into account, at least if we want to achieve anything concrete.

        There is some truth to the “us vs them” between elites and the people, and the current elite is (somehow) very good at making a big part of the people they oppress think that “actually, you’re part of the elite too !”

      • pimpampoom@lemmy.zip
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        18 hours ago

        Not agreeing with the comment but, far-right = Nazi.

        Tho I don’t think saying they deserve to die is true, those people have just fallen in the lies of the far right parties and are scared.

        • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          17 hours ago

          those people have just fallen in the lies of the far right parties and are scared.

          No, I’m done trying to find novel or justifiable reasons for people to support Nazis. The most likely answer is that there’s something in it for them. Not because they’re scared, but because they believe that naziism will get them something (power, control, money, etc) that they wouldn’t otherwise have. It’s an entirely self-serving ideology, so why would anyone follow it for reasons that aren’t rooted in selfishness?

        • Bullerfar@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Everyone is calling people far right nowadays just because they think the boarders shouldnt be kept open to anyone. This is why I ask, because the far left is throwing the word around like Nothin.

    • menas@lemmy.wtf
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      14 hours ago

      If we need to be prepare for collective self-defense, killing violence is the field of the far right. I’m not saying “it’s wrong”, I’m saying that we will lose. Our collectives are made around care and support, their collectives prepare for war an terror

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    “Hatred that kills has no place in our country” - Man trying to stop hateful people who want to kill from facing consequences of their actions.

  • SabinStargem@lemmy.today
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    23 hours ago

    Fuck being calm. Rightwingers keep assaulting normies and our own, because they had suffered no consequences. We should change that, forever. It is easy to be conservative, when you don’t pay for the wrongs you commit.

    • texture@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      also to claim that “the radical left is eyeing 2027 presidential elections” is pretty wild. no radical leftists will be winning any election, sadly.

    • Kacarott@aussie.zone
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      19 hours ago

      I don’t think I’ve heard of “radical left” outside of the US? In Europe I only recall “far left” and “far right”

      • Obi@sopuli.xyz
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        17 hours ago

        In France the literal translation would be “extreme right” and “extreme left”.

    • CovfefeKills@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago
      radical
      /ˈradɪkl/
      adjective
      adjective: radical
      1.
      (especially of change or action) relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.
      "a radical overhaul of the existing regulatory framework"
      2.
      advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social change; representing or supporting an extreme or progressive section of a political party.
      noun
      noun: radical; plural noun: radicals
      1.
      a person who advocates thorough or complete political or social change, or a member of a political party or section of a party pursuing such aims.
      

      Radical change is literally the goal.

  • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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    1 day ago

    “Chill out, everybody calm down. Its was just a nazi, the fucker got what was coming to him.”

    The French have a proud tradition to maintain.

  • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
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    1 day ago

    We’re experiencing a wave of racist attacks and murders and the only thing they talk about is the attack where a fascist was killed.
    We don’t even know exactly what happened yet, most of the noise is coming from Nemesis another fascist “feminist” group.

    Coincidentally, our biggest leftist party was unilaterally labelled “far left” by our ministry of the interior a few days ago. (Le monde used hard left in the article, legally they are a generic leftist party)

    Coincidentally also, mayoral elections are in about 4 weeks, with an uptick from said party.

    Nothing to see here, France is definitely not sliding towards trumpism and fascism at a blinding speed.

    • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      From what I gather there was a group clash of 20+ people and the nazi dudes ran away leaving 1 behind who just got clobbered.

      It was right extremists “counter protesting” and the dead guy seems like a professional agitator providing “security service” to right extremists.

      Tl;dr: they fucked around and found out.