France halts police use of stun grenades at student protests

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to make public address after hundreds of thousands rally to demand more funding for education.

France has temporarily banned police from using stun grenades at student-led protests, the interior minister said, amid growing accusations of police brutality following several days of student demonstrations nationwide.

The announcement on Wednesday came a day after hundreds of thousands of students and supporters marched across France to demand more funding for education and better conditions in high schools, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to convene an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and other key ministers to try to defuse the crisis.

Lecornu will make a public address later on Wednesday on the school protests as well as the country’s finances, his office said.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told radio broadcaster RTL early on Wednesday that he had suspended police use of stun grenades at the protests.

A ۱۵-year-old lost a hand in the northern city of Lens on Monday after police fired a stun grenade.

Earlier, a ۱۴-year-old student was hit in the face by a tear gas grenade at such close range that he lost several teeth. A policeman was charged on Tuesday over the incident in the capital, Paris.

Police have opened ۱۸ internal investigations into allegations of misconduct since the protests began, Nunez said.

Rights groups, students and parents’ groups have accused authorities of using disproportionate force against minors. The government says the protest movement has been hijacked by outsiders and morphed into urban violence.

The Ministry of the Interior said ۶,۱۰۰ people have been arrested since the protests began last month, the overwhelming majority of them minors.

More than ۱,۸۰۰ people are being prosecuted, including ۱,۴۸۳ minors, the Ministry of Justice said, without specifying the crimes.

At least ۷۱۵ police officers and ۲۱۵ teenagers have been injured in clashes, according to Lecornu’s office.

Students demand school funding

Protests started in late September with students blocking entrances to hundreds of high schools for ۱۵- to ۱۷-year-olds over complaints of dilapidated facilities and teacher shortages and demands for more funding for education.

Parents, teachers and union workers joined the demonstrations in Paris and other cities on Tuesday amid accusations that police were using disproportionate force.

Sporadic violent clashes have broken out between police and protesters at what otherwise have been largely peaceful demonstrations.

Lecornu on Tuesday condemned the violence and told lawmakers that it would not be tolerated, while also rejecting accusations that the government had ordered “police repression” against protesters.