French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday warned Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to stop commenting on the death of conservative university student Quentin Deranque.
The 23-year-old Catholic activist was killed last week during an anti-mass immigration protest in Lyon in an alleged act of Antifa violence.
As Breitbart News reported, the young man’s death sparked widespread condemnation of far-left violence. French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, said on Sunday that “clearly it was the far left was behind it.”
On Wednesday, Meloni, in a social media post, said the killing of Deranque is “deeply shocking and saddening,” describing the incident as a “wound for the whole of Europe.”
“The death of a young man in his early twenties, attacked by groups linked to left-wing extremism and overwhelmed by a climate of ideological hatred that spans several countries, is a wound for the whole of Europe,” Meloni’s post read.
“No political idea, no ideological opposition can justify violence or turn confrontation into physical aggression. When hatred and violence take the place of dialogue, democracy always loses,” she concluded.
Meloni’s remarks appear to have infuriated Macron. On Thursday, during the tail-end of an official visit to India, Macron, answering a question from a reporter, urged Meloni to stop “commenting on what is happening in other countries”
“Let everyone stay at home and the sheep will be well looked after,” Macron said, as per Le Figaro.
“I am always surprised to observe that nationalists, who do not want to be disturbed in their own homes, are always the first to comment on what happens in other people’s homes,” Macron stressed, according to Rai News.
Unnamed Italian government sources at the Palazzo Chigi told Rai News that the Italian government received Macron’s statements “with astonishment.”
The sources reportedly emphasized that Meloni “expressed her deep sorrow and dismay at the tragic killing of young Quentin Deranque and condemned the climate of ideological hatred that is sweeping through several European countries.”
“These statements represent a sign of solidarity with the French people affected by this terrible event and do not in any way interfere in France’s internal affairs,” the source said.
“There have been many Quentins in Italy. Some during the darkest periods of the Republic. Condemning episodes such as the one in Lyon also serves this purpose, to ensure that Italy does not return to its ugly past. Because politics is above all about dialogue and debate, even with those who do not share our views,” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said.
“Clearly, Emmanuel Macron does not have the basic political culture to understand that for Giorgia Meloni and Italy, the issue of political violence and the murder of a young right-wing person by the far left has a very particular resonance,” Marion Marécha, the leader of the Identity–Liberties party in the European Parliament, wrote on social media.
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