French PM dismisses police brutality claims as 'accidents' amid teen injuries

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu stood in parliament on Tuesday and offered a single word to describe what happened to a fifteen-year-old boy who lost his hand to a police grenade, and a sixteen-year-old girl who lost sight in one eye after being struck by a projectile: accidents.

The injuries occurred during nationwide student protests that have roiled France since mid-September, when demonstrations began at high schools in the Paris region before spreading across the country. The students are demanding better school funding and improved learning conditions. The government's response has been forceful. More than 6,500 people have been arrested—most of them minors—and hundreds have been injured. On Tuesday alone, an estimated 266,000 people demonstrated nationwide, including 56,000 in Paris, with smaller groups clashing with riot police even as the larger march remained largely peaceful.

Lecornu rejected accusations of police brutality or state repression, arguing that the term itself implies officers had been given orders to use force. He framed the police response as a reaction to what he called urban violence, arson, and vandalism. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez echoed this defense, characterizing the police response as proportionate in almost all cases and insisting that officers had acted within their authority. When pressed on whether injuries could result from police action, Lecornu acknowledged the possibility but treated it as an inevitable byproduct rather than a failure of restraint. "Can accidents happen? The answer is yes," he said.

The specific incidents that prompted the parliamentary exchange are stark. The fifteen-year-old in northern France lost his hand after a police grenade detonated during the protests. A prosecutor investigating the incident said he could not determine with certainty whether the student had picked up the grenade or whether it had been thrown at him. In the city of Tours, the sixteen-year-old was struck by what prosecutors believe was a projectile fired from a sub-lethal riot-control weapon deployed by police.

According to Lecornu's own accounting, 215 students and 85 school staff members have been injured since the protests began. His office reported that 715 police officers were also hurt. The government has framed these figures as evidence of the chaos it faced, though the nature and severity of police injuries remain unspecified.

Lecornu also used the parliamentary moment to attack the opposition. He accused France Unbowed, a left-wing party, of exploiting the student protests to create disorder and gain political advantage ahead of next year's presidential election. President Emmanuel Macron convened an emergency meeting with senior ministers to assess both the protests themselves and their potential political consequences.

The response from lawmakers has begun to crystallize into concrete action. Boris Vallaud, leader of the center-left Socialist group in parliament, announced that his lawmakers would introduce legislation to restrict the use of sub-lethal riot-control weapons at student demonstrations. The proposal is grounded in a specific concern: these weapons can cause permanent injury, as the cases of the two teenagers now demonstrate.

The protests themselves reflect genuine grievance. High school and university students have been joined by members of French unions and teachers' groups, as well as politicians from left-wing parties. The movement has sustained itself for weeks, suggesting that the underlying demands for school funding and better conditions retain broad support. Yet the government's framing of the crisis—as one of urban violence requiring police action, rather than as a failure of policy or restraint—suggests little room for the kind of political response Lecornu acknowledged might be necessary. He said he hoped to "provide a political response to a very real anxiety among high school students," but his defense of police actions and his attack on opposition parties suggest the government sees the problem as one of disorder to be managed rather than demands to be addressed.