Weapons of French police under surveillance after yellow bullet wounds | News from the world

The French government is under increasing pressure to examine the use of explosive weapons by the police against civilians, after serious injuries were reported during the war. yellow vests demonstrations in the street, including people who have lost their eyes and mutilated their hands and feet.

The state council, the French state council, will consider Wednesday an urgent request from the French League of Human Rights and the CGT union banning the police from using a form of rubber ball thrower in which bullet-shaped projectiles are fired. specialized pocket launchers. The French human rights mediator has long warned that they are dangerous and involve a "disproportionate risk".

Lawyers have also asked the government to ban so-called "bullet-filled" grenades containing 25 g of TNT. France is the only European country where the crowd control police use such grenades, which produce an explosion of small rubber bullets that create a pungent effect, while launching an additional charge of tear gas. The grenades create a deafening effect that has been compared to the sound of a plane taking off.

The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, faces new calls to ban such weapons after Jerome Rodrigues, a senior member of the demonstrators of yellow vests (yellow vests), was touched on Saturday at Paris. His lawyer says he's disabled for life.

Human rights groups say the Rodrigues case is only the tip of the iceberg. The lawyers estimate that 17 people have lost an eye because of the use of such weapons by the police since the beginning of the demonstrations, at least three have lost the hand and others have been mutilated to the face and the legs. Injuries took place during demonstrations in Paris and in other cities, notably Bordeaux and Nantes.

Aïnoha Pascual, a Parisian lawyer representing several of the wounded, one of whom was torn apart part of the hand and another who remains partially deaf and who has facial injuries, said that never in the past. recent history as many serious injuries have been seen during protests. She added that the use of pellet grenades amounted to the use of military weapons against a civilian population. "These guns are a very real problem. In the 1980s, if a person was hit at the eye during a protest, there would be a huge reaction, but the government is not reacting for the moment. "

Dominique, 54, a maternal badistant in a rural area of ​​Normandy, described how she saw her sons seriously injured. According to her, one of them would have had the hand pulled by a grenade trapped on the Champs-Élysées, in Paris, in November, during a family day to support the demonstrations of yellow vests.

She said, "We were very calm. There were a few people, a child, nothing extraordinary and suddenly my sons were hit. I remember seeing my son's mutilated hand, his face and body dotted with shrapnel as if a brush had been thrown at him. His brother, who was also injured, had to wear it because he could not walk. I will never forget those pictures. "

She stated that her 21-year-old son's right hand had been torn off and that his other son had been injured in the leg and feet. "I've seen things I would not have believed even in a movie. It was like a war. It was our first demonstration. I did not know that the police had weapons capable of causing this damage. "

His two sons were operated on several times. "The physical damage was serious, but the psychological damage is too. Any noise makes me jump now, even the sound of a crushed plastic bottle. I can not watch police pictures on TV. My son has holes in his forehead; he can not look at his mutilated hand. My other son will have shrapnel in the body for life because it is too dangerous to remove everything. We feel completely alone. We have not heard of the state. It's as if we do not exist.

The government has not commented on specific allegations nor given breakdowns of injuries. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said on Tuesday that 1,900 people have been injured in all circumstances since the yellow vests began in November. Lawyers and journalists who are trying to draw up a list of weapon injuries to the police estimate that at least 100 people have been injured. A total of 101 investigations were opened by the French police guard.

Mr. Castaner stated that 1,200 police officers have been injured since the start of the yellow vests and that the police officers "proportionally" use weapons. He added that France facing a situation of "crisis", no control of the police would be possible at the moment.

During last week's yellow vests demonstrations, the government ordered for the first time the agents shooting at the rubber projectile launchers to carry surveillance cameras, but the French media questioned the correct functioning of the latter. .

Protestant high school students were injured. A teacher reported in November that she saw a teenager's cheek "burst like a slit grenade", which she accused of a rubber bullets from the police. An 80-year-old woman died last month in Marseille after being hit by a tear gas canister, while she was shutting her window shutters during a protest.

Arié Alimi, a lawyer for several wounded people, including a pbader-by struck by a rubber projectile while he went to observe the protests in République in Paris, said: "What is shocking is that the the government presents no excuse to these people. who were injured. "