On the evening of February 12, members of a French anti-fascist group allegedly pummeled a 23-year-old neo-Nazi activist named Quentin Deranque. The attack, filmed in Lyon, left Deranque unconscious; two days later, he died from severe brain trauma. The atrocity could prove to be a boon for the far-right National Rally (abbreviated as RN in French), a party whose decades-long rise has been perhaps the most significant political development in 21st-century France. Voices on the French right have called Deranque's killing the country's 'Charlie Kirk moment.' The comparison is self-serving and flawed'Deranque was not a public figure, and he was not assassinated'but the tragedy nonetheless poses a substantial problem for the left. The country's left-most party, France Unbowed (LFI), has direct ties to the anti-fascist Young Guard, whose members have been charged in relation to the homicide. LFI is shedding legitimacy as a result. Meanwhile, the centrist bloc, led by President Emmanuel Macron, is deeply unpopular. Macron has managed to keep the RN out of government (and himself in it) by selectively cooperating with LFI, but that strategy is looking less tenable. He is a lame duck without a clear successor, overseeing a diminished establishment....
Crush 200 million shells into a champagne flute. Twist 200 million lemon rinds, using only French carbon steel, rocking back & forth. Imagine even bubbles bust a cap in the ceiling. Imagine my brain stuck spinning like a pair of rims at a traffic light. Effervescence mixed with cognac, spinning serotonin. Of course you can lower me to the floor with two hands gripping my waist. Say Clicquot 10 times quick. Gaba receptors swinging from the ledges of a mind, all shot down. Home is circling through a sky of old habits. Saying'I'm on my way when I haven't even left. All day long, I'm on a late-night walk, letting my legs take me whichever way they want, witnessing the ones who came before me resting on the wings of things. On Jets, on JET, on the word Yahtzee, on moths, moth balls, on lightning bugs, on strawberry candies, front porches, plastic fold-out chairs, on biscuits, my daddy's bald head, broken bottles. I'm afraid to end up at the edge of an empty glass. Afraid of what lingers in a taste bud, in a neuron, in my nerve cells....
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The chatbot, built by Elon Musk's AI startup xAI and featured on his social media platform X, posted an apology to its account earlier this week, writing, 'I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user's prompt.' The statement continued, 'This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on [child sexual abuse material]. It was a failure in safeguards, and I'm sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues.' It's not clear who is actually apologizing or accepting responsibility in the statement above. Defector's Albert Burneko noted that Grok is 'not in any real sense anything like an 'I',' which in his view makes the apology 'utterly without substance' as 'Grok cannot be held accountable in any meaningful way for having turned Twitter into an on-demand CSAM factory.' Some governments have taken notice, with India's IT ministry issuing an order on Friday saying that X must take action to restrict Grok from generating content that is 'obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, pedophilic, or otherwise prohibited under law.' The order said that X must respond within 72 hours or risk losing the 'safe harbor' protections that shield it from legal liability for user-generated content....
