- Fight club - 5th March 2026
- Polls apart - 4th March 2026
- Repeating on you… - 4th March 2026
For our Editor Phil Parry reporting violent scenes or court cases has always been central, but it was rare to report a terrible fatal fight, which prompts an emergency government meeting, and rips apart the left.
Unfortunately witnessing, or reporting on, fights, has never been uncommon for me.
It has always been unusual, though, to report how such violence gave rise to such enormous ramifications that it prompted an emergency meeting at government level, and caused major political turbulence.
But just this has happened in France.
Quentin Deranque, a right-wing student activist, died from brain injuries two days after an awful beating.
Video footage showed what looked like an attack by a lynch mob after he had formed part of a group protecting a handful of “feminist and identitarian” protesters who had gathered outside a university lecture.
The lecture was being given by Rima Hassan, a European parliamentarian for Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s populist-left Unsubmissive France (LFI) party.
Seven suspects, aged between 20 and 26, were placed under judicial investigation on February 19 – six of them for ‘voluntary homicide’.
Mr Mélenchon’s political movement holds 71 seats in the 577-seat lower house, and one of the suspects under investigation for homicide is Adrian Besseyre, who previously worked for Raphaël Arnault, an LFI deputy.
Mr Arnault is the co-founder of Jeune Garde, an anti-fascist self-defence movement, which the interior ministry banned last year.
It’s been called France’s ‘Charlie Kirk moment’, and has had incredible repurcussions.
Ahead of mayoral elections, and a presidential vote in 2027, the appalling event stirred worries about political violence, and Emmanuel Macron called an emergency meeting to discuss this on February 24.
This incredible episode has put centre stage for me what I have been exposed to during my long journalistic career, and the incidents have not always come to light in court rooms.
On one occasion I watched through the corner of my eye as the News Editor of the South Wales Echo (SWE) Stuart Minton, jumped up to thump a reporter because he was swearing at him in front of his daughter who’d come in to pick him up.
His victim fell at my feet as I sat perched on one of the desks talking to a friend. This extraordinary incident happened because Stuart had not signed the reporter’s expenses, which he relied on, and he would be left without money for the weekend.
Screams echoed around the newsroom as people realised what had just happened.
But this wasn’t as unbelievable as what has just taken place in France!
Phil’s memories of his 42 year career in journalism (including some of the court cases he has covered), as he was gripped by the incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
Tomorrow – Information technology (IT) experts have expressed to The Eye grave concerns about Russia appearing now to target more NATO allies’ infrastructure, and it also shows how they have tried to attack this website too.
