France Suspends Stun Grenades at Student Protests as Arrests Pass 6,600

Since a 15-year-old boy's hand was blown off by a police stun grenade in Lens on Monday, Oct. 5, France has suspended use of the devices at student protests and the nationwide arrest total has climbed past 6,600.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced the suspension Wednesday morning on RTL radio, saying he was pulling the grenades "until the facts of the incident have been clarified," according to Al Jazeera and Euronews. He stressed the pause applies only to high school protests and will last only as long as it takes to establish what happened in Lens.

The move comes after a second high-profile injury. A 14-year-old in northwest Paris was hit in the face by a tear gas grenade at close range last week and lost several teeth, Al Jazeera reported. A police officer was charged Tuesday over that incident. Nuñez said 18 internal investigations have opened into alleged police misconduct since the protests began in late September.

The numbers keep climbing

More than 6,600 people have been arrested since the movement started, the overwhelming majority of them minors, according to The Guardian's live coverage of Nuñez's remarks to French lawmakers Wednesday. The Justice Ministry says more than 1,800 people are being prosecuted, including 1,483 minors, Al Jazeera reported, without specifying the charges.

Injuries have piled up on both sides. At least 715 police officers and 215 teenagers have been hurt in clashes, according to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's office, cited by Al Jazeera, Fox News and Newscord's roundup of coverage. Newscord's aggregation also cites Lecornu telling lawmakers that 85 school staff have been injured.

Nearly 460 schools remained affected by protests as of Wednesday, The Guardian reported, just over half the number that joined Tuesday's nationwide "day of mobilisation." The Interior Ministry put Tuesday's turnout at 266,000 nationwide; organizers claimed as many as 450,000, according to Fox News and France24.

Two competing accounts of what's happening

Nuñez told French lawmakers Wednesday that police intervene "only when there is damage or violence" and rejected allegations of heavy-handed policing, calling the protest movement "unprecedented" because of "very serious violence," per franceinfo as cited by The Guardian. In earlier remarks carried by Newscord, he said the police response had been proportionate "in almost all cases."

Rights groups and parents' organizations dispute that. Prisca Ancion of the Collective for Judicial Action told AFP, as reported by Euronews, that detained teenagers have described "an insult, a slap, having their head held down on the ground, chokeholds." Manuel Bompard of the hard-left France Unbowed party said "it took several children being maimed for life for Nunez to give up using grenades against high school students."

Police unions counter that officers need non-lethal tools precisely because the situations have turned violent, the BBC reported, citing union complaints that rights groups are ignoring the risks officers face. 715 injured officers is not a small number, and video from Lille, Rennes and Paris has shown protesters throwing fireworks and stones and setting bins on fire, according to Breitbart and the Epoch Times. Whether the stun grenade suspension holds once the Lens investigation concludes, or whether it's reinstated, remains unresolved.

The political fight over blame

The government has accused hard-left activists of hijacking a legitimate grievance over school funding and teacher shortages. Fox News reported that the Île-de-France regional president accused France Unbowed (LFI) of pushing a "Trash your high school" TikTok challenge, and video circulated of Seine-Saint-Denis mayor Bally Bagayoko, an LFI member, high-fiving students near a burning trash can. LFI has denied inciting violence, according to Reuters.

President Donald Trump weighed in from Washington, writing on Truth Social that "what's happening in France is nothing less than out of control mass migration... this isn't about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great Country," Fox News reported. That claim is Trump's own characterization; it is not attributed to any French official, investigator or data source in the reporting, and the underlying protest demands documented by Breitbart and the Epoch Times, including teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms and aging buildings, are about school conditions, not religion, though some students interviewed by the Epoch Times separately raised headscarf and dress-code grievances alongside those complaints.

Lecornu was scheduled to address the nation Wednesday on both the protests and the country's finances, his office told Al Jazeera. On X, he wrote that "the voice of high school students is precious and must be heard." National education unions have called for fresh strikes and demonstrations on Thursday, Euronews reported, meaning the stun-grenade suspension faces its first real test within days, not weeks.