France in February 2026: the most important developments in security
France in February 2026 was marked by the killing of an activist in Lyon and by two security incidents in Paris. The activist, Quentin Deranque, was severely beaten near a conference featuring Rima Hassan and died. Authorities opened a murder investigation and blamed what they called the "ultra-left". On 17 February nine suspects were arrested, among them a parliamentary assistant of the party La France Insoumise, after initial misinformation about the suspects' identities. Two suspects were charged on 19 February. On 18 February the party's Paris headquarters was evacuated after a bomb threat, and by the end of the month Paris prosecutors were investigating a possible revival of a group that had been officially dissolved the week before.
On 13 February a man who attacked police officers with a knife near the Arc de Triomphe was shot by officers and died. Anti-terror prosecutors took over the case; reports said he had earlier stabbed two Belgian police officers and had voiced an intent to commit a massacre.
Defense and foreign policy formed a second strand. President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Friedrich Merz discussed nuclear deterrence, and Germany and France began strategic talks on the subject. Merz said Germany would not build nuclear weapons but could be open to deploying French or British ones. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius rebuked Macron's comments on European defense spending. Airbus proposed splitting the Future Combat Air System fighter program, which Macron defended, and India's acquisition council cleared a proposal to buy 114 Rafale jets, 90 of them built in India. France released the tanker GRINCH, suspected of belonging to Russia's shadow fleet, after it paid a fine of several million euros.
French police raided the Arab World Institute in Paris in an investigation linked to Jeffrey Epstein and to former minister Jack Lang, who said he has nothing to hide, and prosecutors opened investigations into human trafficking and tax fraud. France also said it had detected a Russian-linked disinformation operation tying Macron to the Epstein case.
by WorldBrief & Maksim Micheliov | AI-generated summary
Click a day in the chart above for that day's brief.