"[3] The festival committee of Crépol, a village in the Drôme department with a population of about 500, organizes an annual "winter ball" attended by many people from the surrounding area.

[17] The case was handed over to the Valence public prosecutor's office, led by Laurent de Caigny,[18] who spoke of a "planned expedition" by the perpetrators.

A rugby player friend of Perotto allegedly provoked one of them by pulling his hair and calling him "Tchikita" (named after a song by the singer Jul),[22][21] leading to a brawl that degenerated into further violence.

[27] On the same Thursday, 23 November 2023, five searches in connection with the case took place in the Monnaie district of Romans,[28] known for its problems of delinquency and insecurity, against a backdrop of drug trafficking.

[32][24] However, his direct involvement in the death is in doubt: the witness who had identified him from a photograph did not recognize him during a line-up, and other clues and testimonies pointed investigators towards another individual.

[24] In the days that followed, even after the suspects had been taken into custody, the Valence public prosecutor's office, the only one authorized to communicate on the case, kept the names of the assailants under wraps, apparently due to the ongoing investigation.

[43] On Wednesday, 22 November 2023, a march[44] gathered more than 6,000 people in the streets of Romans, in tribute to Perotto, with the presence of his family and loved ones, including friends from the high school.

[45] Many of Perotto's teammates from his XV rugby club, RC Romanais-Péageois, were also present, as well as students from the Lycée du Dauphiné, where the victim attended school.

[47] Perotto's mother expressed her distress in Paris Match magazine on 21 November and hoped that the investigation would identify all the perpetrators, saying "Who comes to a party with knives?

[16] On the evening of Thursday, 23 November, the Crépol parish organized a vigil with the agreement of the Perotto family, where 400 people gathered with prayers and songs.

[48] Thomas Perotto's funeral is held on Friday, November 24, 2023 at the Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul collegiate church [fr] in Saint-Donat-sur-l'Herbasse, with outdoor speakers installed to broadcast the ceremony.

The mayor of Crépol, Martine Lagut, declared: "I feel depressed, because it's not normal for things like this to happen in our small rural villages.

[clarification needed][51] The mayor of Valence, Nicolas Daragon, stated he hoped that "the attackers, whoever they are, wherever they are, will be found quickly, put out of action and handed over to the courts, whose decision I expect to be as severe as it is exemplary".

[52][53] Called a "fascist", she was subsequently placed under police protection after receiving several death threats by decapitation, which led her to lodge a complaint.

[59] French President Emmanuel Macron spoke of a "terrible assassination" and an "aggression that has marked us all", speaking on the subject at a conference of mayors at the Élysée Palace.

[61] On 27 November 2023, government spokesman Olivier Véran, at the suggestion of the mayor of Crépol, went to meet elected representatives, firefighters, police officers and residents to discuss the matter and "tell them that we are at their side", adding that he hoped for "very heavy sentences".

[63] Senate Majority Leader Bruno Retailleau went further, stating: "We must also get to the root of the evil, that is to say immigration", pointing towards the suspects' cultural backgrounds.

[64][65] On the left, Communist Party national secretary Fabien Roussel stated he deplored "a society where acts of this type are happening more and more" and France insoumise deputy François Ruffin denounced "gratuitous, unbridled, cruel violence", while Finance Committee chairman and France insoumise representative Éric Coquerel refused to talk of ensauvagement and said this type of brawl was not getting worse.

[67] The French Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, offered her condolences, alerted her Interior and Justice Ministers to take a hard line with the perpetrators,[67] and declared that "we have a duty of unity, a duty of dignity, without minimizing the facts (...), without political recuperation, without stirring up hatred",[66] condemning the ultra-right groups, whom she concluded with "we won't let anything get past us".

[78] Several of those arrested came from the neo-Nazi groups Division Martel, Vandal Besak and L'Oriflamme, but most came from various entities that succeeded Génération identitaire, notably Argos.

[93] On the evening of 1 December, a demonstration organized by the identitarian movement Les Natifs, initially banned but then authorized at the last minute, brought together around 200 people in Paris at the Place du Panthéon.

Several demonstrators, many of them hooded,[94] performed Nazi salutes,[95][96] and chanted anti-immigration slogans ("La racaille en prison, clandestins dans l'avion").

[97] On 6 December, Le Canard enchaîné revealed that the national center for combating online hate had opened an investigation against X following the leaking of contact details for young people in the La Monnaie district of Romans-sur-Isère.

This led to numerous editorials and articles denouncing "ultraright"[76] political movements and also positing that the entire matter reflected a "societal fact" not merely a "news item".

[111] On 27 November, Patrick Cohen [fr] talked about the Crépol tragedy on the C à vous program, explaining that the young people from Romans were there to "have fun" and "pick up girls", thus qualifying the initial version of the affair.

[113] An investigation published on 5 December 2023 by Le Parisien,[5] and picked up by several national media,[40][42] disagreed with the hypothesis of a deliberate attack,[114] leaning instead towards a brawl that degenerated, against a background of prior tensions, between young people who had spent an evening together.