> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.ilesanglo-normandes.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # "The real violence is batons on children's skulls, grenades in mouths, hands blown off, eyes taken out." - URL: https://www.ilesanglo-normandes.com/behind-the-headline-of-france-in-flames-french-government-crackdown-on-freedom-continues-with-curfew-imposed-more-schoolchildren-mutilated-while-police-let-france-be-looted-witnesses-sa/ - Published: 2026-10-21T11:30:06.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-21T21:59:27.000Z - Description: Amid accusations police failed to prevent looting and arson across France on 17th Oct., the National Assembly has launched an inquiry. President Macron had no words for schoolchildren injured during his government's crackdown, now escalated into curfews plus the army at protests this weekend. - Author: îles - Tags: Gen Z student protests On Saturday, 17th Oct., faithful to her professional oath to defend the rule of law, Paris-based lawyer [Chirinne Ardakani, ](https://www.instagram.com/p/Der-s5oCNVj/?hl=fr&img%5Findex=1&ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com)put on her court robe to meet up with colleagues. The lawyers had planned to join the main march at the *place de la République* in solidarity with France's school students, to denounce the government's arrests of thousands of 13-to-18-year-olds since they started protesting for more teachers and resources in September. The 2 pm march hadn't yet set off when Paris police fired the first shots of chemical weaponry into the packed crowd. In footage that has gone around the world, the [*Orchestre du Nouveau Monde*](https://www.instagram.com/p/DepqTfKMkLf/?hl=fr&ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com)carried on playing as tear gas canisters landed around them. Families, children, tourists, found themselves trapped as police bombarded them with gas. Every possible exit barred by lines of riot officers. "We heard bursts of stun grenades exploding, tear gas being fired, the CRS \[riot police\] were charging at us," Ardakani shared. With no escape, eyes burning, asphyxiated by gas, a colleague with a megaphone kept urging; "Stay together." "On the 17th Oct. for the first time, I was afraid for my physical integrity," Ardakani stated in her public post about Saturday's fiasco. In the panic, some youngsters took refuge behind the robed lawyers. "Faced with the breakdown in the rule of law, how do we defend those around us as well as the principles of democracy?" Ardakani asked. The mass gassing Paris police subjected children, lawyers, teachers, nurses, and tens of thousands of protestors before the march even began, was repeated in towns and cities across France. In Toulouse, families were blocked onto the *Pont des Catalans* bridge. In Bordeaux, in Marseille, in Lyon, the illegal blocking, gassing, charging and beating of people taking part in authorised demonstrations indicate a pattern of government-ordered repression. "The right to peaceful demonstration was not respected in many towns," denounced one opposition party *Les Ecologistes.* ### The National Assembly has announced a parliamentary inquiry to investigate the policing strategy "*maintien de l'ordre"* observers say targeted authorised protests yet failed to prevent widespread looting and arson in France's towns and cities. Among the 800,000 people marching in solidarity with schoolchildren across France, or 550,000 according to police, as the march progressed toward the Boulevard Magenta Saturday afternoon, one man collapsed. Announced as cardio-respiratory arrest by authorities, prior to any post-mortem, "we have no information about the circumstances of his death and the care administered to him," observed a joint statement of [associations](https://www.instagram.com/p/DetTmI4IoEQ/?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com) from the Paris suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine, where the deceased demonstrator lived. The protestor died near the *place de la République, "*where repression was particularly violent, with air massively saturated in tear gas," they noted. In his first address to the country since the education protests began a month ago, on Sunday, president Macron didn't mention either the citizen who died or the children injured for life at school by police officers under his government's authority. "He did not say a single word about the school and university students mutilated by the repression," decried the leading students union, *Union Etudiante.* Our demands have been met with nothing but contempt and truncheons, they declared. "He did not say a single word about the real violence committed on Saturday. In fact, the real violence is batons against children's skulls, grenades in the mouth, hands blown off, eyes taken out." ### On Saturday, police once again fired military-grade weapons at schoolchildren, mutilating another two teenagers. In Saint-Etienne, a town of 170,000 people, Farès, a 17-year-old maths student had his hand entirely blown off after police fired a stun grenade into marchers. A video of the moment after impact captured the utter shock at the shredded remains of his hand. His family is pressing charges against both the police officer who fired the grenade, and France's Interior Minister, Laurent Nunez. "The Minister reintroduced such weapons in full knowledge of their dangerousness," Yassine Bouzrou, the family's lawyer declared. Nunez had banned stun grenades briefly after a police officer blew off the hand and forearm of Evan, a schoolboy in Lens earlier this month. Then permitted their use again at Saturday's protests. "Without that decision, our client would still have his two hands," Bouzrou [stated](https://www.instagram.com/p/DerskVFoBGH/?hl=fr&ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com). On Saturday afternoon, in Mulhouse, a town of 104,000 people in the east of France, Cindy received the call of every mother's nightmares from a friend of her daughter's. Her 17-year-old, Maïssa had just been seriously injured. Hit by a tear gas grenade fired by police directly into the crowd, according to witnesses speaking to independent media [Politis](https://www.politis.fr/articles/2026/10/info-politis-a-mulhouse-une-jeune-de-17-ans-perd-la-vision-dun-oeil-apres-une-charge-policiere-ligpn-saisie/?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com). As people tried to come to the teenager's aid, police officers continued to fire at them with tear gas, Politis reported. Despite surgeons' efforts, Maïssa has lost all vision in her left eye. The sixth-former's family is also pressing charges for this lifelong disability. Another demonstrator in Strasbourg was also partially-blinded, according to independent media Contre Attaque. In Clermont-Ferrand, police shot a citizen in the head with a LBD gun. In Saint-Nazaire another in the eye. In Toulouse, an English tourist was seriously wounded by a police grenade hitting her in her leg, Contre Attaque reported. The weekend's count adds to 36 investigations into mutilations and serious injuries by police on schoolchildren since protests began. With hundreds more injuries requiring children and students to need hospitalisation. ### Confirming an alert issued by France's *Ligue des Droits de L'Homme,* journalists and medics, clearly identified as such, were also targeted by police over the weekend. In Paris, a number of journalists were wounded with grenades, while a video circulating shows a [medic](https://www.instagram.com/p/DetzxOMCHAm/?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com) severely beaten almost unconscious by police officers on the *place de la République*. In Toulouse, five teams of medics were also injured. "We medics, identified as such, were targeted multiple times by law enforcement, while we were caring for demonstrators," the Toulouse Pink Medics group reported. On Sunday evening in the capital, as related in Le Parisien, a second protestor lost his life, reportedly after falling during a crowd charge by riot police, in the Châtelet area. Witnesses told Le Parisien, police officers prevented people from going to his aid for some time after he fell. France's prime minister Sébastien Lecornu told the nation no-one died over the weekend. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/10/IMG-20261017-WA0005.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/10/IMG-20261017-WA0016.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/10/20261018_185521.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/10/IMG-20261017-WA0008.jpg) ### Over the past month, France has been waking each day to its own ICE-like scenes - only the targets are schoolchildren, students and anyone supporting them. The [World Organisation Against Torture ](https://www.ilesanglo-normandes.com/world-organisation-against-torture-french-governments-violent-repression-of-schoolchildren-violates-international-law/)has denounced France's violent repression of children as in violation of national and international law. The UN has voiced alarm and urged the French government to respect the freedom of protest. In France, the entire breadth of French civil society, magistrates unions, lawyers, NGOs, teachers unions, has condemned the French government's violent repression of schoolchildren and students. Just as during social uprisings after police killings in the suburbs and during the repression of the *Gilets Jaunes*, Yellow Vests movement, the government has commanded militarised police to restore order among school and university students, using "all intermediary weapons" "without restraint." In the same way as teenagers growing up in suburbs around Paris and in town across France have long faced [racial profilin](https://www.ldh-france.org/profilage-racial-la-cour-europeenne-des-droits-de-lhomme-se-prononce-pour-la-premiere-fois-sur-les-controles-policiers-au-facies/?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com)g, daily ID checks, invasive body searches, and unjustified arrests like a form of police [occupation](https://www.revue-ballast.fr/fatima-ouassak-banlieues-et-gilets-jaunes-partagent-des-questions-de-vie-ou-de-mort/?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com), white, middle-class teenagers in Paris and in wealthier suburbs have experienced the full force of the government's police repression. "It's not normal. They're attacking minors. Repression through terror is not normal," is how one sixth-former near Nation, east of Paris put it. Year 11s and sixth-formers have been subject to mass gassings, and mass arrests. "By targeting high school students, the State is trying to see how far it can go," Sebastien Roché, a researcher specialised in policing, told the trade union magazine NVO. ### Parliamentary inquiry into 17th Oct: "Looters were able to move from store to store without seeing a single police officer." As French and global media report on "France in Flames," the French state faces heavy criticism from mayors, oppositions parties, shopkeepers and business owners, to explain why countrywide looting and arson was not prevented by police. "Looters were able to move from store to store without seeing a single police officer," mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, told Libération newspaper. The mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan went further, declaring on[ France Inter ](https://www.facebook.com/reel/1658742635648569)he would be seeking answers from the Interior Minister as to why police were ordered away from protecting Marseille's city hall and why police officers did not attempt to arrest those who vandalised the building. Paris streets Sunday night buzzed with speculation on the police's inaction against looters. "Last night there were 12 police officers here, I counted them," said Kieran, near his place of work. "Everyone was looting, and the police did nothing. They were just watching," he said. "They didn't want to stop it." "What instructions were given to police to maintain order?" asked the *Ecologistes* Party. "How could the state, which had anticipated this violence according to the actual words spoken by the Minister of the Interior and the Prime Minister, have been so overwhelmed?" ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/10/20261018_000804.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/10/20261018_174408.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d1/c7/d1c79ccb-3da4-4ed2-8fda-9b60db236f61/content/images/2026/10/20261018_175238-1.jpg) Scenes in Paris over the weekend. ### "Early use of tear gas on authorised marches and inaction against rioters are two symptoms of the same security fiasco." [Vincent Lemire](https://x.com/v%5Flemire/status/2111877309774901711?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com), a historian and researcher, was among the first to point out a vast inadequacy in police numbers on duty that day. In 2018, Lemire noted, [89,000](https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/archive/un-dispositif-de-grande-envergure-pour-les-manifestations-du-8-decembre?ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com) law enforcement officers were in action against 125,000 Yellow Vest protestors. Equating to one officer for 1.4 demonstrators. That compares to 10,000 police officers for 550,000 protesters, or 800,000 on 17th Oct. One officer for every 55 demonstrators. "Let's not forget that police are even more violent when they are overwhelmed," Lemire observed. "Early use of tear gas on authorised processions and the inaction against rioters are two symptoms of the same security fiasco." ### Amid a global media narrative of "France burning" the French state has seized on Saturday's events to escalate authoritarianism. The government failed in its attempt to order intelligence services to falsely pin the rioting on ultra-left fringe groups, as exposed by Mediapart. Since Saturday's burning scenes went around the world and France expressed more outrage over damage to buildings than to children's bodies, the government has imposed further restrictions on freedom to protest. Nighttime curfews are imposed in parts of Paris, a helicopter surveys the *place de la République* and Nunez announced the army unit *the Sentinelle* will be on duty for protests planned in Paris this weekend. In judicial repression, the government has also begun fast-tracking court appearances and denying citizens full rights to legal representation. Some minors with no prior record, have found themselves detained in prison or have been issued with suspended sentences simply for carrying protective equipment like masks in their bags. Legal teams are calling for citizens to go and attend public hearings to support the students arrested. In the Paris suburb of Bobigny, lawyer [Elsa Marcel](https://www.instagram.com/p/DewWtq6oAYW/?hl=fr&img%5Findex=1&ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com) raised the alarm for the conditions of detention, 10 mattresses for 86 people, 20 of whom are children. "In spite of this policy of humiliation and terror, the school students are proving exceptional courage," Marcel declared. "Their families too. Honour to them." "Like lawyers before us, we're going to have to take the battle outside our offices, into the streets, in courtrooms, in public opinion," lawyer Chirinne [Ardakani](https://www.instagram.com/p/Der-s5oCNVj/?hl=fr&img%5Findex=1&ref=ilesanglo-normandes.com) declared, after experiencing France's shift away from the rule of law at *République* Saturday. "'Those who live are those who fight,' as Hugo said'," she added. "In these times, 'those who fight are also those who plead cases.'" --- --- ###