00:00How did disinformation and online speculation go viral after the killing of Quentin de Ranque?
00:09The killing of Quentin de Ranque, a 23-year-old far-right activist who was fatally beaten by a group
00:15of youths in the city of Lyon,
00:17has sparked a tense political debate in France.
00:20The events leading to de Ranque's death occurred on the sidelines of a conference held by far-left MEP Rima
00:26Hassan at Sciences Po.
00:28Arrests have been made while France's interior minister Laurent Nunez has said that there is clear evidence to suggest the
00:34implication of far-left groups in the altercation which led to de Ranque's death.
00:39But even before these arrests or the revelation of the suspects' identities, far-right activists and social media users shared
00:46the names of people they thought were involved.
00:48Blandine Bardinet, who was part of the now-dissolved anti-fascist Jeune Yardes Group, was among those named by far
00:55-right politicians and activists online.
00:58This now-deleted ex-post shared by Damien Rieu contained multiple unrelated images of the young woman alongside video footage
01:05of the killing of de Ranque,
01:06in an apparent bid to highlight the fact that she was wearing the same coat as one of the young
01:11man's attackers.
01:12But Blandine's lawyer Raphael Kempf told us that she had left France to travel abroad the day before, on Wednesday
01:1811th February, for a planned stay of several months.
01:22Elsewhere on social media, several photos claiming to show de Ranque have been circulating since the incident.
01:28In reality, the only authentic photo of him was released by his family and published in the French newspaper Le
01:34Figaro.
01:35One image actually depicts Dylan Guichawa, a representative for a local youth branch of the far-right National Rally Party.
01:42Guichawa responded to the viral posts with a Facebook statement denouncing the misuse of his identity,
01:48stating he had no connections to the events mentioned and even less to the attack and death of Quentin.
01:54Guichawa
01:58Guichawa
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