Protestsupdated 1h ago2 min read
France Suspends Police Stun Grenades at High School Protests After 15-Year-Old Loses Hand
France suspends police use of stun grenades at high-school protests after 15-year-old's hand blown off. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said pause lasts until facts of Lens incident are clarified.
Stun grenades paused
France suspended the use of stun grenades by police at high school student protests, Interior Minister Laurent Núñez told RTL radio on Wednesday. Núñez said, "I am suspending their use for the high school students' movement" until there was more clarity on what happened. President Emmanuel Macron convened an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and other key ministers after tens of thousands of people took to the streets across France on Tuesday to demand better conditions in high schools.
Núñez said a 15-year-old lost a hand on Monday after police fired a stun grenade, and he said police opened 18 internal investigations into misconduct allegations since protests began. The protests began in late September when students blocked the entrances to hundreds of high schools for students aged 15 to 17, in protest of the poor condition of facilities and the lack of teachers.
Arrests, injuries, disruption
The Interior Ministry put the number of demonstrators at 250,000, while organisers estimated that almost twice as many people had joined the protests. Police arrested 488 people during the demonstrations, and the Interior Ministry said 43 members of the law enforcement were injured. Lecornu’s office said Lecornu would deliver a public address on Wednesday about the school protests and the country’s finances, as the disruption continued early on Wednesday with more than 500 schools fully or partially shut.
Education Minister Édouard Geffray said 24 schools had been "set alight or vandalised" to such an extent that they would be shut for several weeks, affecting 30,000 pupils. The interior ministry said 488 people were arrested and 43 members of the security forces were hurt, while the BBC said the government suspended stun grenades "until the facts of Monday's incident in Lens had been "clarified".
Debate over force
Manuel Bompard said, "It took several children being maimed for life for Nunez to give up using grenades against high school students," as the government blamed the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) for stoking tensions around the protests. Lecornu condemned the violence on Tuesday and told lawmakers it would not be tolerated, while rejecting allegations that the government had ordered "police repression" against protesters. The government said the protest movement had been hijacked by outsiders and morphed into urban violence, and the Ministry of the Interior said 6,100 people have been arrested since the protests began last month.
Lecornu’s office said at least 715 police officers and 215 teenagers have been injured in clashes, and the Ministry of Justice said more than 1,800 people are being prosecuted, including 1,483 minors. The BBC said the stun grenade was fired in unclear circumstances near the Auguste Béhal high school in the northern city near Lille, and it said authorities have said the 15-year-old picked up the grenade which then exploded.