{"id":2439,"date":"2026-10-10T12:03:53","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T07:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2439"},"modified":"2026-10-10T12:03:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T07:03:53","slug":"french-policing-under-scrutiny-as-student-protest-injuries-mount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2439","title":{"rendered":"French policing under scrutiny as student protest injuries mount"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Fourteen-year-old Eden suffered a broken jaw and multiple smashed teeth when he was struck by a tear gas canister directed towards him at close \u200brange by a police officer last week during student protests in France, his parents and family lawyer said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The teenager had been sitting on a wall looking at his phone metres away from the \u200cprotest in Saint-Ouen-l\u2019Aum\u00f4ne, the lawyer said.<\/p>\n

An officer approached him and struck him with a baton, prompting Eden to respond with a kick, according to the local prosecutor.<\/p>\n

A second officer then fired a tear gas grenade with a Cougar launcher, hitting him in the face.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The officer) shot him in the mouth and left him lying on the ground, without even calling the emergency services,\u201d said lawyer Elsa Marcel.<\/p>\n

The family, who asked for Eden\u2019s second name to be withheld to protect their privacy, has filed a complaint for attempted murder, she said.<\/p>\n

A police \u200bspokesperson said they do not comment on ongoing investigations.<\/p>\n

According to the prosecutor\u2019s office, the police officer said that he was seeking to protect himself and his colleagues after the student confronted police.<\/p>\n

The officer was \u200bplaced under formal investigation on charges of assault by a public official resulting in permanent disability or disfigurement on Tuesday, eight days after the incident.<\/p>\n

The case is one of \u206024 under investigation by the IGPN internal police watchdog linked to the policing of a more-than-two-week-long wave of student unrest<\/a> over conditions<\/a> in schools.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has described the demonstrations as the most violent in decades.<\/p>\n

The police response has renewed \u200bcalls for the withdrawal of the use of rubber bullets and grenade launchers, which are not used by police in many other European countries and have been repeatedly criticised in recent years by rights groups, including Amnesty International and UN \u200bhuman rights experts, as dangerous and disproportionate.<\/p>\n

It has also sparked anger among the public and fanned support for a protest movement that is the latest manifestation of deep-seated discontent<\/a> with President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s government ahead of a 2027 election.<\/p>\n

Via interviews and reviews of legal documents, Reuters has documented 28 cases of injuries suffered due to police force, of which 15 are among those under investigation by the IGPN.<\/p>\n

They involve the use of rubber bullets, stun grenades, tear gas, batons and charges on horseback.<\/p>\n

In two cases, a person\u2019s eye has been lost or \u200binjured due to rubber bullets.<\/p>\n

In another, a 15-year-old in Lens had his hand blown off \u2014 likely by a stun grenade, according to interior minister Laurent Nunez, who paused<\/a> the use of stun grenades pending an investigation into the case.<\/p>\n

Nunez said \u200bon Wednesday in a radio interview that about 200 students had been injured, but that it was very rarely the result of police action.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur primary role is, of course, to protect high school students,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Authorities said that 700 police officers have also been \u200cinjured, schools have \u2060been burned or ransacked, and teachers and members of the public have been attacked.<\/p>\n

The police have arrested 6,877 people, mostly minors.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrance is an anomaly in terms of its use of arms and the number of victims \u2014 we have four irreversible injuries in the space of 12 days, and they are minors,\u201d said Sebastian Roche, researcher on policing at the French National Centre for Scientific Research.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a level that is unknown in (France\u2019s) contemporary history,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Calls to ban \u2018less lethal\u2019 weapons<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Roche said that France stands out in Europe for its use of \u201cless lethal\u201d weapons such as rubber bullets and stun grenades.<\/p>\n

Such weapons are generally not used for public order policing in Britain, Italy and Germany, aside from Hamburg, and although permitted in \u200bSpain, have caused fewer injuries than in France, said Roche.<\/p>\n

In \u200bthe Paris suburb of Argenteuil, a 16-year-old student \u2060on his way home after finding his school closed was shot by police, injuring his left eye, which may be permanently damaged, his lawyer Sophia Kerbaa told Reuters.<\/p>\n

It is not clear if he was hit by a rubber bullet or something else, she added.<\/p>\n

A video viewed by Reuters showed the boy bleeding from his eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was in the wrong place \u200bat the wrong time \u2026 he is injured and in shock,\u201d Kerbaa said.<\/p>\n

The prosecutor investigating the case said that, according to the police account, the injured student \u201cseemed to correspond\u201d \u200bto one of two young people \u2060who had directed fireworks at police officers, who responded with rubber bullets.<\/p>\n

The interior ministry did not respond to questions on the case, or that of Eden.<\/p>\n

Human rights advocates, including Amnesty International, and some politicians have called for \u201cless lethal\u201d weapons to be banned permanently, while police unions say the police need these weapons to enforce order in violent situations and to ensure their own security.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must withdraw the use of rubber bullets and \u2026 aim for zero injured students. That will allow us to de-escalate,\u201d Mayor Bally Bagayoko \u2060of the left-wing \u200bFrance Unbowed party told Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bagayoko joined the protests in his town, Saint-Denis, saying he wanted to protect young people from the police.<\/p>\n

Thierry Clair, a \u200bpolice union representative, said that serious injuries such as Eden\u2019s, or another child losing his hand, were tragedies, but should not call into question France\u2019s policing techniques.<\/p>\n

He said the problem came instead from the intensity of the violence being committed by some young people who stoked tensions.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do \u200bwe respond when people are moving towards confrontation? If we remove intermediate force options, all we are left with is lethal force,\u201d Clair told Reuters. \u201cThat is simply inconceivable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fourteen-year-old Eden suffered a broken jaw and multiple smashed teeth when he was struck by a tear gas canister directed towards him at close \u200brange by a police officer last week during student protests in France, his parents and family lawyer said. The teenager had been sitting on a wall looking at his phone metres away from the \u200cprotest in Saint-Ouen-l\u2019Aum\u00f4ne, the lawyer said. An officer approached him and struck him with a baton, prompting Eden to respond with a kick, according to the local prosecutor. A second officer then…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}