France has suspended police use of stun grenades at student-led demonstrations, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, pending an investigation into how a 15-year-old protester lost his hand two days earlier.
"I am suspending their use for the high school students' movement until the facts surrounding this case have been clarified," Nuñez told French radio RTL, specifying that the measure applies only to the student movement, not to other policing operations.
The boy was injured during a protest in the northern city of Lens on Monday, October 5. According to the mayor of Wingles, the town where the teenager lives, his left hand was amputated and he later received a graft.
What remains unknown is precisely how the grenade caused the injury. The internal police watchdog, the IGPN, must establish whether the teenager picked up the grenade after it landed, whether it struck him directly, and whether the police firing was within regulations. Officials have not yet confirmed which scenario occurred, and the exact type of grenade is still being determined, though Nuñez said it was "manifestly" a stun grenade.
National police chief Louis Laugier had already ordered a precautionary suspension of the ASSD stun grenade on Tuesday, October 6, "while the circumstances of the injury to the young man in Lens are established," according to an internal telegram seen by AFP.
A movement over school conditions
The protests erupted across France in late September over teacher shortages, severely dilapidated school buildings, overcrowded classrooms, and long school days. Students have also demanded changes to the Parcoursup university admissions system.
The movement peaked on Tuesday, October 6, when hundreds of thousands of people marched nationwide. The interior ministry estimated more than 250,000 participants, including 56,000 in Paris, while organizers put the total as high as 450,000.
Most marches were peaceful, but some ended in vandalism and running clashes with riot police, who fired tear gas and carried out baton charges.
A mounting toll on all sides
Since the protests began, at least 215 students and 85 school staff members have been injured, alongside more than 700 police officers and gendarmes, according to figures cited by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's office.
More than 6,100 people have been arrested since the movement began, the overwhelming majority of them minors, and more than 1,800 are facing prosecution, according to the interior and justice ministries.
Nuñez said the IGPN has opened 18 investigations to determine whether officers acted proportionately during the demonstrations.
In a separate case, a French police officer was charged on Tuesday, October 6, with violence after firing a tear gas grenade at close range at a 14-year-old student named Eden during a protest the previous Monday. The boy lost most of his teeth and suffered a fractured jaw requiring surgery. The prosecutor said the conditions for self-defense were not met because the firing lacked proportionality.
Competing accounts of police tactics
Rights groups, trade unions and opposition politicians have accused French police of using disproportionate force against student protesters. Amnesty France said images and testimonies from the protests raised "alarming concerns" about the use of tear gas, batons and policing techniques.
A petition launched on October 5 by a teacher, calling for a ban on "mutilating weapons and lethal immobilization techniques" at student demonstrations, gathered more than 50,000 signatures on the French National Assembly website within two days.
The government has defended its approach. Nuñez said that once a situation escalates into "urban violence," it is normal for police and gendarmes to have the full range of intermediate weapons available, and that in "almost all cases" the intervention was proportionate.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu rejected accusations of "police repression" during a parliamentary session on Tuesday, while condemning violence unconditionally. He accused the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party of deliberately fueling unrest and sowing chaos ahead of the presidential election.
Where things stand
Confirmed: stun grenades are suspended for the student protest movement while the Lens investigation continues; 18 IGPN investigations are open; one officer has been charged over the tear gas incident; and both protest injuries and arrests have run into the hundreds and thousands respectively.
Unknown: the exact circumstances of the Lens injury, including whether the grenade was picked up or fired directly at the boy, and whether police followed regulations.
Awaited: the findings of the IGPN investigations, and a public address by Prime Minister Lecornu expected later on Wednesday, October 7.