FRANCE: Repressive crackdown on student protests
Since late September, high school students have held nationwide demonstrations demanding better education conditions, more teachers, smaller classes, and decent school facilities across France. The student movement across many cities from Lille to Saint-Denis, Paris, Lyon, Toulouse and Marseille has been met with disproportionate police force. In only a week, over 5000 arrests were recorded, with 1948 detentions on 1 October alone, while ten investigations have been opened by the Inspection générale de la Police nationale (IGPN), France’s police oversight body.
Serious injuries to minors have been reported: for example, a 15-year-old student had his left hand torn off after the explosion of a police grenade thrown by the police on 5 October in Lens, a 14-year-old student was hit in the face at close range with a grenade launcher by a police officer in Val-d’Oise on 28 September, resulting in hospitalisation, jaw injury, and loss of teeth. Another student lost an eye from a “blast ball” in Tours on 30 September. Several human rights organisations, including Amnesty International France and the French League of Human Rights (LDH), as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association, condemn the police violence against protesters, especially minors, who are demanding their right to education and health, and in response are facing repression and disproportionate police violence.