Protests in France, use of smoke grenades by police suspended after a teenager lost his hand

France has suspended the use of smoke grenades by police at high school student protests, after a 15-year-old lost his hand.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez announced the move on RTL radio early on Wednesday. The teenager was injured on Monday after police fired a smoke grenade.

“I am suspending their use at high school student protests until the facts of the incident are clarified,” Nunez said. He stressed that the suspension applies only to those protests and will last as long as needed to determine what happened.

Police have opened 18 internal investigations into suspected breaches of duty since the start of the protests, he said. An officer was charged on Tuesday after a 14-year-old in north-west Paris was hit in the face by a tear gas grenade last week from such a close distance that he lost several teeth.

More than 6,500 people, most of them minors, have been arrested since the start of the movement in late September, when students began blocking high schools over dilapidated facilities and a lack of teachers. Hundreds of students, police and teaching staff have been injured.

A quarter of a million people demonstrated across France on Tuesday, the interior ministry said, with at least 488 arrests and 43 members of the security forces injured.

Lawyers for the detained teenagers say their clients have faced violence and insults. Prisca Ancion of the Collective for Judicial Action told AFP that every arrested high school student reported experiencing “an insult, a slap, their head held to the ground, chokeholds”.

President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and key ministers on Tuesday evening. Lecornu, who is expected to speak about the protests later on Wednesday, wrote on X: “The voice of high school students is precious and must be heard.”