France suspends stun-grenade use at student protests after teenager loses hand

France has suspended police use of stun grenades at student demonstrations after a 15-year-old boy lost his hand during a confrontation near a school in Lens. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the pause would remain in place while the circumstances of the incident were clarified. The decision came after days of protests over conditions in French schools.

Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated on Tuesday, and more than 500 schools were fully or partly closed on Wednesday, according to the BBC. The movement has expanded beyond high-school pupils to include parents, university students and unions. Accounts of the Lens incident remain disputed.

Authorities said the teenager picked up an anti-encirclement grenade and it then exploded. Students alleged that he was struck directly after an officer fired it. The local prefect said police had faced more than 200 students throwing stones and fireworks.

Nuñez said the episode raised questions within his ministry and that the suspension was necessary while the facts were examined. The police watchdog IGPN has opened 18 investigations into whether officers acted proportionately during the demonstrations. The government has defended the broader police response.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said security forces had not been ordered to confront young people and promised proposals by the end of October addressing student demands. He said the proposals could include renovating school buildings and making more teachers available, but gave no further details. Education Minister Édouard Geffray said 24 schools had been set alight or vandalised so extensively that they would remain closed for several weeks, affecting about 30,000 pupils.

Government officials said the disorder had harmed more than 200 students and 700 police officers, while the Interior Ministry reported 488 arrests and 43 injured members of the security forces. The Lens case is not the only incident raising concern about policing. A 14-year-old boy injured by a tear-gas grenade in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône reportedly lost several teeth and suffered a fractured jaw; a police officer has been charged.

In Belfort, a 17-year-old protester alleged that an officer held his head underwater during an arrest, while prosecutors opened an attempted-murder investigation. The teenager was also charged with aggravated assault over an alleged attack on the officer. Protests were mostly peaceful on Wednesday, although police used tear gas near Sciences Po university in Paris.

A police union official criticised the suspension, warning that removing the grenades could lead to closer confrontations and more injuries. Nuñez rejected the description of the response as police repression, saying officers were reacting to violence and damage. The suspension is temporary and concerns the use of stun grenades at student protests.

It does not resolve the conflicting accounts of the Lens injury or the wider dispute over policing, school conditions and the protests’ rapid escalation.