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Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced on October 7 that police would suspend the use of stun grenades in the context of the high school student movement until investigators clarify the circumstances of an incident in Lens where a 15-year-old lost his hand and part of his forearm. Nuñez told RTL radio that the decision followed a police action that raised questions inside the ministry while stressing the suspension applied only to these protests and would last just long enough to establish the facts. The French interior ministry had already directed forces to halt deployment of the EF-SON model introduced in 2025 as a provisional measure according to multiple reports including those from Le Monde.
Authorities in Lens described a confrontation with 200 to 250 students who threw stones and fireworks near the Auguste Béhal high school on October 5 when the grenade detonated. Officials maintained the teenager picked up the device but students countered that an officer fired it directly at him a discrepancy now under review by the IGPN police oversight body. The boy’s mother told BFMTV that her son had undergone amputation of his left hand and received a graft adding that his life had been stolen and questioning how children could be treated that way while denying he had tried to retrieve the grenade from the ground.
The suspension came one day after hundreds of thousands of students parents teachers and union members marched nationwide on October 6 to demand increased education funding better school infrastructure and an end to teacher shortages according to interior ministry tallies that placed participation at 250,000. That mobilisation resulted in 488 arrests and injuries to 43 security personnel the ministry reported while the prime minister’s office separately listed more than 215 teenagers 85 school staff and at least 715 police officers hurt since protests began in late September. Organisers estimated turnout approached twice the official figure as demonstrations spread from high schools to universities in what the government has described as a movement partly hijacked by outsiders.
Nuñez disclosed that the IGPN had opened 18 investigations into alleged misconduct by officers during the protests including a case in which a 14-year-old lost several teeth after being struck in the face with a tear gas grenade at close range in the Paris region. A policeman was charged over that incident on October 6 while other probes examine claims that force was disproportionate against minors the interior minister stated. Rights groups and parents associations have criticised the response as excessive a charge the government has rejected while pointing to violence against security forces.
French police have a documented history of employing stun grenades during crowd control with Statista figures showing hundreds deployed annually by national forces in the years preceding 2023 including elevated numbers during the 2018 Yellow Vest protests. A global assessment published in 2023 by Physicians for Human Rights and partner organisations documented more than 120,000 injuries worldwide from tear gas rubber projectiles and similar devices in demonstrations since 2015 including numerous cases in France. The EF-SON grenade now suspended for these protests fires from a Cobra launcher and disperses rubber pellets upon detonation as a non-lethal anti-encirclement tool according to technical descriptions in Le Monde.
Protests erupted in late September when students began blocking high school entrances over complaints of overcrowded classrooms dilapidated facilities and insufficient resources a movement that gained momentum through coordinated actions and social media coordination. By October 7 hundreds of lycées remained partially or fully closed for the week as student leaders called for further demonstrations the education ministry reported with around 40 percent of higher education institutions also affected on October 6. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu was scheduled to deliver a public address later on October 7 covering both the school crisis and national budget debates following an emergency meeting convened by President Emmanuel Macron.
