Live: France suspends stun grenade use in school protests after 15-year-old loses hand
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By: FRANCE 24 A police officer throws a dispersal grenade during a demonstration of high-school students in Paris on October 6, 2026. © Kenzo Tribouillard, AFP The French government has suspended the police use of stun grenades against protesting high school students, the interior minister announced Wednesday, after a teenager had his hand blown off up to the elbow by one fired by police. Eighteen internal probes have been launched in response to allegations of police brutality since the student movement broke out in mid-September. Follow our liveblog for all the latest developments.
Eighty-six percent of high schools had opened their doors as of Wednesday morning, provisional figures from the Education Ministry showed.
But classes at 528 high schools had been totally or partially suspended, the ministry said, adding that this was a decrease of 41 percent down from Tuesday's disruptions.
Students staging a sit-in at Paris's Sciences Po university hold a sign that reads, "Macron, you're done for; the youth are in the streets".
French riot police armed with tear gas grenade launchers form a line opposite the demonstrating students.
Students bear signs reading, "Police Kill", Sciences Po Fighting Against Precarity", "Sciences Po Complicit".
A barricade with French Palestinian flags blocks the entrance of Sciences Po university.
Organisers estimated that some 450,000 people demonstrated across France in support of the country's growing student protest movement on Tuesday – tens of thousands of them in Paris.
Read our report from the barricades and demonstrations that swept the capital.
French high school students hold a French flag and placards as they gather outside the Lycée Lamartine high school in Paris.
A French high school student holds a placard which reads "We're skipping our lessons to give you one!"
French riot police are dismantling a barricade set up by students outside Sciences Po university's Paris campus in solidarity with the nation-wide high school protest movement, footage shared on social media by CLPRESS news agency showed.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu will make a public address later Wednesday on the nation-wide student demonstrations as well as the country's finances, his office said.
President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency meeting with Lecornu and other key ministers on Tuesday after hundreds of thousands of students and their supporters took to the streets to protest teacher shortages and run-down school buildings.
The French government has suspended the use of stun grenades in high school protests, the interior minister announced, after a teenager lost his hand to one fired by police.
"I am suspending their use for the high school students' movement" until there was more clarity on what happened, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told radio broadcaster RTL.
One policeman has been charged in an incident involving an injured youth, while a further 18 internal police probes have been launched over allegations of brutality during the demonstrations.
French interior ministry estimates 250,000 join student protests; organisers claim 450,000 As it happened France 'We're fed up': Paris students rise up in a movement that shows no sign of slowing On the ground France Includes a video 3 min Most read
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