Since the start of the protest movement in high schools, 215 students have been injured, according to Matignon. The Prime Minister's services declared that "the vast majority" were killed "either in the context of accidents", "or by the actions of other external individuals". Ten investigations have, however, been opened by the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), the "police of police", since the start of the high school movement, announced the Ministry of the Interior on the evening of Monday October 5.
The day after these announcements, the Metz public prosecutor's office announced that a new investigation had been opened on Tuesday, October 6, for events that occurred on Monday in the city. In total, 6,059 arrests have been made since September 28 and 715 police officers or gendarmes have been injured, according to the government.
A 14-year-old boy injured in the jaw
“His jaw is sealed, he can no longer speak and he eats through a straw.” The mother of Eden, 14, seriously injured after a police officer shot him in front of his high school on Monday, September 28, spoke to the press a week later about her son's state of health. He has “all his upper teeth broken” and “the lower ones knocked out”. According to the teenager's lawyer, Eden was seriously injured in the head "by the shot of a tear gas grenade launcher".
In images widely shared on social networks, three helmeted police officers are filmed face-to-face with the high school student. One of them delivered a first blow to the teenager, who in turn kicked him, before a grenade launcher shot in the face propelled him to the ground.
The Pontoise public prosecutor's office announced on September 28 that two investigations were open. The first, entrusted to the IGPN, concerns the shooting carried out by the police officer, and the second on acts of violence against police officers, reports France 3 Paris-Ile-de-France. The parents of this second year student at the Château d'Epluches vocational high school in Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône (Val-d'Oise) are also preparing to file a complaint with the Pontoise public prosecutor's office for attempted intentional homicide.
A 16-year-old boy with one eye blinded
Maël, a 16-year-old teenager, was seriously injured in the head on Wednesday, September 30, during the blockade of the Balzac high school, in Tours (Indre-et-Loire), reported prosecutor Catherine Sorita-Minard. “I contacted the IGPN for investigation,” she announced on
In a press release sent to the press on Monday, Maël's family assured that the teenager had "no involvement, directly or indirectly, in any militant or political commitment whatsoever", specifying that he was still hospitalized. “It is simply a teenager who found himself caught up in the events, and which tragically affected his physical integrity,” adds the family. A complaint for violence by a person holding public authority was filed, according to the prosecution.
A 16-year-old high school student injured in the eye
The Pontoise public prosecutor's office (Val-d'Oise) declared Thursday October 1 that it had entrusted an investigation to the IGPN for violence with a weapon by a person holding public authority. That day, two police officers used their LBD while "two young men located about twenty meters from them (...) had fired mortars" in their direction, explained the prosecutor.
“In response, two police officers carrying LBDs” made “use of them”, according to the prosecution. The police reached the two young people, who then “fled”. The public prosecutor specifies that the description of "one of the two individuals" corresponds to that of a 16-year-old boy whose family has announced the filing of a complaint.
On France Inter, lawyer Sophia Kerbaa, who represents the family, explained that the teenager, a first year student at the Georges-Braque high school, was trying to return home by bypassing the Val-d'Argenteuil station, blocked by the police, when he found himself "in spite of himself" in the middle of a gathering. “That’s where he was shot in the face,” said the lawyer. Emergency surgery to try to free his optic nerve, “he is afraid of being blind”, confided the lawyer. “Bones have been broken around the eye and the prognosis of blindness is guarded,” she explained, adding that her client will probably have to undergo further interventions.
A 15-year-old boy whose hand was torn off
A 15-year-old high school student, in second grade, had his hand torn off Monday morning near a high school in Lens. The days of the teenager, hospitalized in Lille, "are not in danger", according to the prefect of Pas-de-Calais François-Xavier Lauch. The exact circumstances in which the teenager was injured remain to be determined, write our colleagues from France 3 Hauts-de-France who collected testimonies from teenagers present at the time of the events.
If some of these witnesses claimed that the teenager was injured by a grenade, it will be up to the IGPN to "determine the type of grenade used", explained prosecutor Etienne Thieffry, who spoke alongside the prefect during a press conference Monday afternoon. He also assured that he was not able to say, for the moment, "whether this teenager had formally recovered a grenade which exploded in his hand, or whether the grenade would have landed on him".
“It’s obviously a tragedy, we don’t have to lose our hand in a demonstration.”
Laurent Nuñez, Minister of the Interior
on France Inter
“An investigation is open, which will say under what conditions these facts occurred” and “whether the action was proportionate or not,” added the minister on public radio.
A 14-year-old girl held on the ground
An investigation was also opened on Tuesday October 6 after the arrest the day before of a young girl in Metz (Moselle), on the sidelines of the mobilization of high school students, franceinfo learned from the prosecution. The investigations will have to “establish the existence or not of acts amounting to sexual assault on a minor under 15 years of age,” announced the public prosecutor.
On social networks, a widely shared video shows a young girl being held on the ground by a police officer who touches her hair and chest. According to the prosecution, the 14-year-old girl was placed in police custody for “degradation” and “participation in a group with a view to preparing violence”. The investigation, entrusted to the IGPN, must in particular make it possible to “authenticate and analyze” these images.
Questioned by the police, the young girl however "refuted any act of violence and any act of sexual assault on her person in the context of her arrest" and her legal representative, also interviewed, did not file a complaint, underlined prosecutor David Touvet in a press release published Tuesday afternoon. A police source reports to franceinfo that the police officer intends to file a complaint for defamation.
Other open investigations
If the Ministry of the Interior announced Monday that ten investigations had been entrusted to the IGPN since the start of the high school mobilization, several of them have not been the subject of communication from the authorities and police services. According to a list drawn up on Wednesday by the Minister of the Interior, one of them concerns, for example, events which occurred in Sevran (Seine-Saint-Denis). Concerning the five other open investigations, we do not have any information at this time. Contacted by franceinfo, neither the IGPN nor the police communicated on these cases.
