FRENCH POLICE FORCE FACES MOUNTING OUTRAGE AS TEENAGER’S DEVASTATING INJURIES INTENSIFY STUDENT PROTEST CRISIS
October 10, 2026
French police tactics have come under renewed scrutiny after a 14-year-old boy suffered a broken jaw and multiple shattered teeth when a tear-gas grenade fired by a police officer struck him in the face during student protests, intensifying demands for restrictions on weapons used to control demonstrations.
The teenager, identified only as Eden to protect his family’s privacy, was injured last week in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, near Paris. According to his family’s lawyer, Elsa Marcel, he had been sitting on a wall and looking at his phone several metres away from the protest when the confrontation occurred. The local prosecutor said an officer approached Eden and struck him with a baton, prompting the teenager to respond with a kick. A second officer then fired a tear-gas grenade from a Cougar launcher, striking him in the face.
Marcel alleged that the officer fired the projectile into the teenager’s mouth and left him lying on the ground without calling emergency services. Eden’s family has filed a complaint alleging attempted murder. Police have declined to comment on the ongoing investigation, while the officer involved told investigators that he had been attempting to protect himself and his colleagues after the teenager confronted them. On Tuesday, eight days after the incident, the officer was placed under formal investigation on suspicion of assault by a public official resulting in permanent disability or disfigurement.
The case is one of 24 being examined by France’s internal police watchdog, the IGPN, in connection with law enforcement operations during a more-than-two-week wave of student unrest over school conditions. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has described the demonstrations as the most violent in decades, highlighting the intensity of the confrontation between protesters and security personnel.
The latest injuries have reignited demands for an end to the use of rubber bullets and grenade launchers during public-order operations. Human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, and United Nations human rights experts have repeatedly criticised such weapons as potentially dangerous and disproportionate when used against demonstrators. Critics argue that the deployment of these weapons risks turning crowd-control operations into incidents with life-altering consequences, particularly for young people.
An examination of legal documents and interviews has documented 28 cases of injuries associated with police force during the protests, 15 of which are among the cases being investigated by the IGPN. The incidents involve rubber bullets, stun grenades, tear gas, batons and mounted police charges. In two cases, people sustained eye injuries or lost their sight after being struck by rubber bullets.
Another particularly disturbing case involved a 15-year-old boy in Lens who lost a hand, probably because of a stun grenade. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez temporarily suspended the use of stun grenades following that incident, pending an investigation. The growing number of serious injuries has intensified pressure on the government to reassess the weapons and tactics used against demonstrators.
Nuñez said on Wednesday that approximately 200 students had been injured during the unrest, although he maintained that injuries caused by police action were rare. He insisted that protecting high-school students remained the authorities’ primary responsibility. Meanwhile, officials reported that approximately 700 police officers had also been injured, schools had been burned or ransacked, and teachers and members of the public had been attacked. Police have arrested 6,877 people, most of them minors.
Sebastian Roché, a researcher specialising in policing at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, argued that the country stood out in Europe because of its reliance on so-called less-lethal weapons and the number of serious injuries associated with their use. He pointed to four irreversible injuries involving minors within 12 days, describing the situation as unprecedented in contemporary French history.
Concerns have also emerged over the shooting of a 16-year-old student in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil. The teenager, who was reportedly travelling home after discovering that his school was closed, sustained an injury to his left eye that could cause permanent damage. His lawyer, Sophia Kerbaa, said it remained unclear whether he had been struck by a rubber bullet or another projectile. According to the prosecutor investigating the incident, the police account suggested that the injured boy resembled one of two young people who had directed fireworks at officers, who then responded with rubber bullets.
The competing accounts have exposed the central dilemma confronting French authorities: how to maintain public order during violent confrontations without inflicting severe or irreversible injuries on young people. Human rights advocates and several politicians have called for a permanent ban on rubber bullets and other weapons they consider dangerous for crowd control. Bally Bagayoko, mayor of Saint-Denis and a member of the left-wing France Unbowed party, has argued that withdrawing rubber bullets would help de-escalate confrontations and reduce injuries among students.
Police unions, however, oppose a blanket withdrawal of these weapons. Thierry Clair, a police union representative, described the injuries to Eden and the teenager who lost his hand as tragedies but argued that they should not lead to the abandonment of existing policing methods. He maintained that removing intermediate-force options could leave officers with fewer ways to respond when demonstrators become violent, potentially increasing the risk of lethal force.
The controversy has consequently developed into a wider debate over the proportionality of French crowd-control tactics, police accountability and the state's responsibility to protect minors during demonstrations. With multiple investigations under way and demands for restrictions on rubber bullets and grenade launchers growing louder, the handling of the student protests has become a major test of public confidence in French law enforcement ahead of the 2027 election.
