French Police Tactics Under Scrutiny as Injuries Mount During Student Protests

Paris: France’s policing of a nationwide wave of student protests is coming under growing scrutiny after a series of serious injuries to teenagers. The cases have led to investigations into alleged excessive force and renewed calls to restrict the use of riot-control weapons.

In one of the most serious cases, 14-year-old Eden suffered a broken jaw and several smashed teeth when he was hit in the mouth by a tear gas canister fired at close range by a police officer during a protest in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, near Paris, his family and lawyer said. According to the family’s lawyer, Elsa Marcel, the boy had been sitting on a wall looking at his phone a few metres from the protest, and the officer left him on the ground without calling emergency services. The family has filed a complaint for attempted murder and asked that the boy’s surname be withheld.

The prosecutor’s office gave a different account. It said the student had confronted police and officers tried to push him back, and that the officer said he was acting to protect himself and his colleagues. According to the police account, the student appeared to match one of two young people who had directed fireworks at officers, who responded with rubber bullets. The officer was placed under formal investigation on Tuesday, eight days after the incident, on charges of assault by a public official resulting in permanent disability or disfigurement.

In another case, a 15-year-old student in the northern city of Lens lost a hand during a confrontation involving police.

The interior ministry said the IGPN, the French police’s internal watchdog, has opened 24 investigations linked to the policing of the protests, which have now lasted more than two weeks. Students have been demonstrating over conditions in schools. Through interviews and a review of legal documents, Reuters has documented 28 cases of injuries caused by police force, 15 of which are among those under investigation by the IGPN. French authorities have also reported injuries among security personnel and damage to public property.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has described the demonstrations as the most violent in decades. The injuries have angered parts of the public and boosted support for the protest movement, the latest expression of deep discontent with President Emmanuel Macron’s government ahead of the 2027 presidential election. The United Nations has also voiced concern over the violence.

Sebastian Roché, a policing researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, said France is an anomaly in its use of weapons and the number of victims, noting four irreversible injuries to minors in the space of 12 days. The police response has revived long-standing calls from rights groups and UN experts to ban rubber bullets and launcher-fired riot-control weapons.

Thierry Clair, a police union representative, said that serious injuries such as Eden’s, or the loss of a child’s hand, were tragedies but should not call France’s policing techniques into question.