In France, thousands of individuals took part in a demonstration organised by the far-right on the weekend to honour the memory of an activist who passed away in Lyon due to brain injuries last week after confrontations with a far-left group, a killing that has fuelled more political friction in France and resulted in a diplomatic response by the United States, Euronews reported.

The 23-year-old Quentin Deranque fell victim to a fight between the far-left and far-right supporters that got out of control on the fringes of a student meeting where a far-left politician was speaking as the keynote.

At the time of the killing, seven individuals were arrested for the murder.

On Saturday, approximately 3,200 protesters strolled in the eastern city of France, in an opposition that was conducted under different levels of police scrutiny.

Police are also examining individuals who were suspected of making Nazi salutes and shouting racist and homophobic slogans at the march. The parents of Deranque made an appeal to calm and were not present at the march. The demonstrators were carrying stickers with the words “Quentin, killed by the militia of Mélenchon,” the leader of the far-left party France Unbowed. The leader of the far-left has denounced the violence, yet denied the allegations that his party had caused the incident.

French President Emmanuel Macron was already urging calm and, before the march, declared that he would invite a meeting of ministers next week to look into violent activist groups affiliated with political parties.

Macron hinted at the fact that some of them could be abolished, and that” in the republic, there is no place for violence” and that “militias have no place.”

The assassination has highlighted intense political divisions in the run-up to the presidential election next year and municipal elections the following month. Lyon, which the intelligence services have viewed as the fortress of far-right activism in France, has turned into a hotspot in terms of organised street fights between the far-right and far-left militants.

Jordan Bardella, the leader of the right-wing National Rally, requested that there should be a common front against France Unbowed, and former President François Hollande of the Socialist Party told the mainstream left not to work with the party of Mélenchon again.

There was also an attack on the offices of France Unbowed since the killing. And last week, Paris covered the Place de la Republique with swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans following a neo-Nazi rally.

Meanwhile, the diplomatic dispute between France and the United States also arose as a result of the incident, CBS News wrote.

On Sunday, Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot declared that Paris was summoning the US ambassador Charles Kushner following the declaration of the counterterrorism bureau of the US state department that “violent radical leftism was on the increase” and that this is what resulted in the death of Deranque.

According to Barrot, France did not wish to have “this tragedy instrumentalised,” emphasising that the nation had no lessons to take, especially regarding violence, in the form of the international reactionary movement.

This is not the first occasion when Kushner, who is the father-in-law of the US President, Donald Trump, has been called upon by the French authorities.

In August, he was called to testify regarding a letter that he sent to Macron, stating that France had not done enough to fight antisemitism.