It all started with the tragic death of a teenage boy attending a village dance in southern France. Although the circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear, members of France’s ultra-right immediately blamed it on “anti-French” sentiment, descending on the region en masse to avenge his death.
Witnesses described a rare and frightening scene: A hundred or so ultra-right activists, many of them armed and masked, gathered in the small town of Romans-sur-Isère on Saturday to avenge the death of 16-year-old Thomas. The rugby-playing high-schooler died from his wounds on November 19 after being stabbed in the nearby village of Crépol during a brawl that allegedly broke out between some dance attendees and a group that arrived by car at the end of the dance. Nine people have been arrested in connection with the killing.
