France has suspended the use of stun grenades by the police at student-led demonstrations, the interior minister said on Wednesday, as allegations of police brutality mounted after days of sometimes violent demonstrations across the country.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across France on Tuesday demanding better conditions in high schools.
That same evening, President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and other key ministers to find a way out of the crisis.
Lecornu will speak later on Wednesday on the school protests as well as the national finances, his office said, against the backdrop of heated debates over the country’s 2027 budget.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told radio broadcaster RTL early Wednesday that he had suspended the police use of stun grenades at the protests.
A 15-year-old lost a hand on Monday after police fired a stun grenade.
“I am suspending their use in the high school student protests until the facts of the incident have been clarified,” said Nunez.
He stressed that this suspension was “only for the high school student protests” and for “just long enough to understand what happened”.
Last week, a 14-year-old student in northwest Paris was hit in the face with a tear gas grenade at such close range that he lost several teeth.
A policeman was charged Tuesday over that incident.
Police have opened 18 internal investigations into allegations of misconduct since the protests began, Nunez said.
“It took several children being maimed for life for Nunez to give up using grenades against high school students,” said Manuel Bompard, national coordinator of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI).
The government has blamed the LFI for stoking tensions around the protests.
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