A 15-year-old student lost a hand during clashes near the Auguste Béhal vocational school in Lens, northern France, on Monday. Around 200 to 250 young people had gathered outside the school at about 10:30 a.m. Prosecutor Étienne Thieffry confirmed that the teenager was seriously injured. He said the boy’s life was not in danger and that he had been transferred quickly to a hospital in Lille.
The circumstances are still under investigation. A police source told Le Figaro that the teenager picked up a crowd-control grenade, apparently intending to throw it back toward police, and that it exploded in his hand. France’s General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) has opened an investigation into violence causing permanent disability. The prosecutor said the victim and his family would receive support from the France Victimes 62 association.
The incident comes amid a week of nationwide high-school protests. The Romanian report says demonstrations have taken place at more than 1,200 high schools and that more than 5,000 people, most of them minors, have been arrested. Authorities said up to 500 schools were fully or partly closed on Monday. Students cite chronic underfunding of public schools and unequal distribution of resources. Paris police chief Patrice Faure urged students to stop blocking schools and return to peaceful forms of protest.
The accompanying photograph shows a student demonstration at Lycée Jules Ferry in Paris on October 2. It does not depict the incident in Lens.