By Gianluca Lo Nostro
PARIS, Feb 19 (Reuters) – A war of words erupted between French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Thursday over the killing of a French far-right activist who was beaten by hard-left activists over the weekend during protests in Lyon.
Seven people, including an assistant to a member of parliament from the far-left France Unbowed (LFI), will face murder charges in the case, a prosecutor said on Thursday. They were among 11 arrested earlier in the week.
Meloni, a conservative, said on social media on Wednesday that the killing “by groups linked to left-wing extremism … is a wound for all of Europe.”
That triggered an angry response from Macron on Thursday, who told reporters during a visit to India: “I’m always struck by how people who are nationalists, who don’t want to be bothered in their own country, are always the first ones to comment on what’s happening in other countries.”
Asked if his remarks referred to Meloni, Macron replied: “You got that right.”
Macron, a pro-Europe centrist, and Meloni, one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s closest European allies, have sparred in the past over issues ranging from the conflict in Ukraine to trade and European policy.
The killing of Quentin Deranque, 23, during the Lyon clashes has caused uproar in France, damaging the LFI and allowing the far-right National Rally to depict itself as a victim of deadly extremist violence.
Lyon prosecutor Thierry Dran said Jacques-Elie Favrot, an assistant to LFI lawmaker Raphael Arnault, faces charges of complicity through instigation and was put in pre-trial detention.
Favrot and the other suspects deny the accusations, he added.
Arnault said earlier this week that the aide had “stopped all parliamentary work”. Favrot’s lawyer said his client has acknowledged committing violence and being present at the site, but said he was not “the author of the blows that caused the death of Mr. Deranque.”
In response to Macron’s criticism of Meloni, the Italian Prime Minister’s office issued a statement expressing astonishment at the comments, saying Meloni had “expressed her deep sorrow and dismay at the tragic killing of young Quentin Deranque.”
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro and Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris, Giselda Vagnoni in Milan; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Edmund Klamann)
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