Raphaël Arnault Villeurbanne conference authorized by Lyon administrative court, Digi Mart USA News (Villeurbanne, France): The conference of France Unbowed (LFI) deputy Raphaël Arnault will take place Friday evening in Villeurbanne after the Lyon administrative court granted an emergency appeal filed Thursday by the deputy, who is also co-founder of the Jeune Garde, against the prefectural ban on the event.
The book presentation, titled Antifasciste, was originally scheduled for Thursday in Lyon but was canceled for security reasons. A new date was set for Friday at a bar in Villeurbanne.
The prefecture had cited a “violent, longstanding and documented antagonism” between the far left and far right in Lyon, months after the death of Quentin Deranque, and feared “serious disturbances to public order.” Far-right groups had called for mobilization against the event.
On Tuesday evening, a district council meeting was interrupted after about fifty LFI activists entered to protest the cancellation of the conference in the district.
The prefecture said the planned event reproduced the configuration of a conference by Rima Hassan, during which nationalist activist Quentin Deranque was lynched in the streets of Lyon by far-left activists nine months earlier. It had therefore banned counter-demonstrations announced for Friday in Villeurbanne, as well as any other gathering in a wide perimeter of the city center.
The administrative court upheld that broader ban.
The prefecture said it will deploy a security arrangement “as appropriate as possible.”
