France’s crackdown on high school protests is coming under growing scrutiny after several teenagers suffered severe, potentially life-changing injuries during clashes with police.Thousands have also been arrested during the demonstrations aimed at demanding better-funded and better-equipped schools.A 14-year-old boy, identified as Eden, suffered a shattered jaw and severe dental injuries after a police tear gas grenade struck him in the face during the protest. His mother said he underwent surgery and is currently unable to speak or eat normally, relying on a straw for liquids.The police officer who fired the grenade was taken into custody a week later and faces a preliminary charge of violence by a public official resulting in mutilation or permanent disability, an offence punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors said his use of the weapon appeared disproportionate. The officer told investigators he had acted within “a fraction of a second” to protect a female colleague who had exchanged blows with the teenager.Eden’s case is one of several serious injuries suffered by teenagers during the nationwide protests. In Lens, a 15-year-old lost a hand in an incident involving a police stun grenade. In Tours, prosecutors said a police riot-control round was suspected of causing the partial blinding of a 16-year-old.The injuries have intensified questions over the use of force against a movement made up largely of schoolchildren. Critics and human rights campaigners say police have responded disproportionately, while the government maintains that officers have intervened when demonstrations have turned violent, involving rioting, vandalism and attacks.
Thousands arrested
The protests began at a high school in the Paris region in mid-September and have since spread across France, with students demanding increased funding and more replacement teachers.More than 6,500 people, mostly young protesters, have been arrested since the movement began, according to the Interior Ministry. Some 488 people were detained during nationwide demonstrations on Tuesday.Lawyers and researchers who study French policing warn that the scale of the crackdown could have consequences beyond the current protests, potentially leaving young people disillusioned with the French Republic and its ideals of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”Alexis Baudelin, a Paris lawyer representing more than a dozen young protesters, told news agency AP that many of his clients were experiencing a protest and police custody for the first time.“It politicises you at an incredible speed,” he said, describing their arrests as a crash course in what he called “unrestrained violence from the police.”Baudelin said his clients had described spending hours in unsanitary cells, being unable to sleep and facing threats from officers during questioning.
Government suspends some grenades
The growing backlash prompted interior minister Laurent Nunez to suspend the use of the model of stun grenade suspected of causing the Lens teenager’s injury during high school protests.Nunez said there was a “strong possibility” that the weapon was involved in the teenager losing his hand and said authorities needed to establish exactly what happened.At the same time, he defended the police response in “almost all cases” as proportionate, saying officers had been forced to intervene when protests descended into violence.But he acknowledged that dealing with schoolchildren required a different approach.“You don’t handle a high schoolers’ movement in the same way as one by adults,” Nunez told broadcaster RTL.The government is also facing accusations of racial profiling. Three Paris-region teenagers who spoke to AP said they were arrested, handcuffed, searched and held in custody before being released without criminal charges.Two of them, both 17, said they believed they had been targeted because of their race. Warkya and another teenager are Black, while Samy described himself as Arab. French officials have repeatedly denied racism within the police, with prime minister Sebastien Lecornu calling such allegations “lies”.