The family of a 17-year-old boy beaten to death in the southern French city of Narbonne has called for a mass demonstration on Sunday 5 July, framing it not as a conventional vigil but as what they are calling “La Dernière Marche” — The Last March.
Speaking on behalf of the boy’s mother, his aunt, Marie-Julie Marteau, announced that the march would begin at 11am and invited parents, residents and politicians of all persuasions to take part. She told CNEWS the family had chosen the name because they were tired of seeing “white marches” held every time a young person was killed, and wanted Louis to be the last such victim. The teenager’s mother has been more forthright still, telling Le Journal du Dimanche: “This is not the time for mourning; it is the time for war,” and declaring herself “angrier than ever.” She has called for the accused to be tried as adults, for France’s juvenile justice laws to be revisited, and said she had repeatedly warned social services that her son was in danger before he was killed.
Louis died in hospital on 23 June, four days after he was lured to an unfinished building on Narbonne’s Quai d’Alsace and beaten by a group of youths on the evening of 19 June. According to the Narbonne prosecutor, Jean-Philippe Rey, the attack bore the hallmarks of premeditation, with the group appearing to have set a trap to draw the teenager to the site. Footage of the assault, filmed by the attackers themselves, later circulated on social media; French broadcasters, including France 3, reported that it showed him being repeatedly struck and kicked as he lay on the ground. He was left at the scene overnight and was found unconscious the following morning by a construction worker. He had been staying at a state-run children’s care facility in Narbonne since May, placed there with his parents’ agreement to help him move towards an apprenticeship, his aunt said.
Five suspects, three of them minors, have been placed under formal investigation on charges equivalent to premeditated murder and remanded in custody, having initially been held on lesser charges of attempted murder before the case was upgraded following Louis’s death. All five are reported to have no prior criminal record and to have known Louis through the child-welfare system. They remain presumed innocent pending trial. The motive has not been established. Investigators are said to be examining a possible revenge motive, with the suspects reportedly giving differing accounts in initial questioning, according to Europe 1, including a claim that a dispute between Louis and one of the group dated back several years. The original document also notes that Louis had reported an earlier group assault to gendarmes a week before his death, though he did not pursue a formal complaint.
The case has taken on a political dimension that has, at times, overshadowed the family’s own campaign. The Narbonne prosecutor has stated there is “no basis” for treating the killing as racially motivated, and used a formal statement to challenge what he described as inaccurate claims circulating in some media and on social platforms. Nonetheless, reports on social media and in alternative outlets such as Frontières, describing the suspects as French-born descendants of North African immigrants, have stoked considerable anti-immigration sentiment around the case. The Reconquête leader, Éric Zemmour, has described Louis’s death as a “francocide” — a term he applies to killings he attributes to mass immigration — and said he will join the 5 July march, while party figures including Stanislas Rigault have urged supporters to travel to Narbonne under the hashtag #LaDerniereMarche.
That mobilisation has since spread beyond French politics. The Czech-based network Hooligans.cz has circulated details of the march and appealed to “European friends” to attend, with the international football ultras page Casual Ultra Official helping spread the call further; some reports suggest the 5 July rally could draw thousands. It will not be the only demonstration linked to Louis’s death. More than 1,000 people attended an earlier march in Narbonne on 28 June, organised by right-wing activists without the family’s backing. Louis’s father and stepmother have organised a separate memorial march in nearby Carcassonne for Saturday 4 July, while Reconquête has announced a further rally in Brest the same weekend as the Narbonne march, alongside additional events planned in Paris.
The government has sought to draw a line between the case itself and its political afterlife. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, in an interview with Le Parisien published on 27 June, accused the “far right” of exploiting the killing. He described the footage of the attack as “unbearable” and said Louis had been “lynched to death,” but rejected framing the case in racial terms, reiterating that prosecutors had found no evidence of a racial motive.
