Teen Loses Hand While Trying to Throw Stun Grenade in France

A teenager in France lost a hand after attempting to throw a police stun grenade back during student riots that have spread across the country.

Protests that began last week over run-down schools and classrooms, overcrowding and teacher shortages have rapidly escalated into violent clashes.

Further unrest was reported today near Auguste Behal High School in Lens, in the Pas-de-Calais region.

The 15-year-old reportedly picked up a police stun grenade and tried to throw it back before the device detonated, severely injuring him and blowing off his hand.

Officials said the boy was taken to hospital shortly afterwards and was not in a life-threatening condition.

Other reports claimed he may have suffered an injury extending up to his elbow, although that detail has not been confirmed.

The incident followed reports that far-Left rioters set fire to the entrance of a Paris school, trapping teachers and pupils inside as mass student protests across France continued to cause widespread disruption.

Video recorded outside Vauquelin High School in Paris this morning appeared to show violent demonstrators setting fire to the school entrance.

Through shattered glass, flames could be seen spreading across the school’s front doors. They appeared to have started at a blockade outside the entrance.

Several seconds later, two men attempted to tackle the blaze from inside the building with a pair of fire extinguishers, but their efforts appeared to have little effect.

The fire continued to grow in intensity as young demonstrators were seen throwing additional objects onto the blockade and feeding the flames.

Local media reported that about 100 students were evacuated from Vauquelin High School. Demonstrators were also said to have fired fireworks at firefighters during the emergency response.

Carole Zerbib, head of the vandalised school, said it had been targeted by a “very determined” group wearing hoods and masks. She said the group tried to force its way through the entrance before starting the fire.

Police and firefighters brought the blaze under control soon afterwards. The school was evacuated and lessons were suspended.

“It was very violent and happened very quickly,” Zerbib said, adding that the attack lasted between 15 and 20 minutes.

“It was terrible for the students who witnessed this outburst of violence,” she said, adding that those responsible were not pupils at the school.

The school is one of hundreds affected by violence that has plagued France since last week. 

Many educational institutes will begin a second week of closures ahead of a nationwide day of demonstrations on Tuesday.

In Lille, the Gaston-Berger High School was blockaded early this morning. Students were seen gathering around a large bonfire that had been set. 

And over in Caen, the gate of Victor Hugo High School was set alight. Rioters appeared to have thrown large items like bins into a pile before setting it on fire.  

In central Paris, dozens of teenage students demonstrated outside a school while passing cars honked their horns. Some classmates made their way inside to attend lessons.

‘We’re missing our lessons to give you one,’ read one cardboard sign outside the Turgot high school, located in Paris’s third arrondissement.

In Bordeaux, in the south-west, some students returned to the classroom while others continued to demonstrate in the presence of riot police.

Some protesters outside the Gustave Eiffel high school set off fireworks in the direction of the police, who responded sporadically with tear gas, but overall the situation remained calm, AFP reporters said.

In the northern city of Lille, masked protesters destroyed bus shelters and set fire to dustbins, as police fired tear gas towards demonstrators. 

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu set out a timetable on Sunday urging local authorities to prioritise filling gaps left by long-term teacher absences and unfilled posts.

He called a meeting for Tuesday with regional presidents to discuss overhauling the country’s often-dilapidated school buildings.

Maud Bregeon, a spokesperson for the French government, said this morning that Emmanuel Macron’s administration is putting together a new law that would make the parents of young people who cause public damage liable to pay for it. 

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The law, which will be put to the country’s senate later this month, would allow ‘drawing funds from family benefits if necessary’.

Ms Bregeon said: ‘We need to establish a form of collective responsibility. If you are participating in a violent movement, and after being ordered to leave by the police, you remain in that violent movement, then joint responsibility may be engaged.’

The nationwide demonstrations and blockades underline a fraught social atmosphere as France’s government embarks on trying to pass a deficit-narrowing 2027 budget. 

France’s ten-year bond yield briefly topped 5 per cent last week, its highest since 2002, as the protests compounded investor concerns over the country’s fiscal outlook.

Officials said the student protests have so far disrupted lessons at 413 high schools today.

The education ministry, which had reported 564 schools were affected at around midday on Friday last week, said the drop was due to ‘sustained dialogue with high school students. 

The protests began in late September at a high school in a Paris suburb over teacher shortages before spreading nationwide.

‘Our priority is to restore order,’ government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon told CNews television on Monday.

Mr Geffray said that 24 schools had been burned or ransacked and that 78 employees of the national education system had been injured since the beginning of the demonstrations.

On Monday, BFMTV showed images of police and student skirmishes in Lille in northern France.

Since last Monday, around 5,000 people, mostly teenagers, have been arrested nationwide and dozens injured. Teachers and members of the public have been attacked, while damage to property is estimated in the tens of millions of euros.

Paris police chief Patrice Faure, in an open letter published on X on Saturday, said those who had launched the protests no longer controlled them and called on students to abandon blockades in favour of peaceful protest.

Student unions have nevertheless called for a national day of demonstrations on Tuesday. Security officials fear that an organised protest in central Paris in particular could see further violence amid concerns that far-Left and anarchist groups could try to take over the protests.

CGT union head Sophie Binet told TF1 television on Monday that CGT union members will attend Tuesday’s demonstrations ‘to protect high school students’.

‘We’ve been appalled by what we have seen over the past 10 days and by the unprecedented crackdown that the government has organised against the protests by high school students,’ she said. 

She also slammed the government’s proposal to make parents of rioters liable for damages, calling the motion a ‘populist announcement’, which she said would ‘end up targeting the most vulnerable families’.

The French Human Rights League (LDH) on Monday accused security forces of using disproportionate methods against protesters, many of whom are legally minors.

‘We can see that in the instructions given to the police, there is no directive to show restraint, even though they are dealing with children,’ LDH president Nathalie Tehio said.

At Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, students took turns expressing their grievances at an open-air meeting Sunday.

When you are a student from one of the deprived districts, said one student, ‘The violence is unleashed.’

She referred in particular to one student who had lost his teeth to a police rubber bullet and another who had been hit in the eye.

One 16-year-old boy, Campion, held a placard that read: ‘They say they are listening to us but prefer to gas us’.

‘I don’t understand why the government deploys so much force against a case that is valid: our education, our future,’ he told AFP.

Mr Geffray, in his statement, spoke of far-Left infiltrators who had ‘hijacked’ the movement ‘and engaged in extreme violence’.

‘Clearly, this poses a risk to both our staff and our students,’ he said, adding that 78 education staff members had been injured.

‘They were deliberately targeted because they were employees of the national education system,’ Mr Geffray said.

Organisers have called for the protests to continue on Tuesday, citing a lack of ‘concrete measures’ from the government.

In a bid to address the protesters’ concerns, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu set out a timetable on Sunday urging local authorities to prioritise filling gaps left by long-term absences and unfilled posts.

He also called a meeting for Tuesday with regional presidents to discuss overhauling the country’s often-dilapidated school buildings.