Nuñez suspends stun grenades after a 15-year-old loses a hand in Lens

France's interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, on Wednesday suspended the use of stun grenades in the policing of high-school protests, after a 15-year-old boy lost a hand during a clash in Lens on Monday. He told RTL the order holds until the case is clear. He said there was a strong possibility that a stun grenade had caused the injury, and that 18 incidents in total had been sent to the police inspectorate. Authorities have not confirmed whether the boy picked the grenade up or was struck by it. They said up to 200 protesters had been throwing projectiles when the riot squad moved in.

The suspension is limited. Nuñez worded it for the high-school movement, not for every public-order operation in France. Stun grenades, which French police classify as a dispersal munition, remain in the inventory. What changes this week is their use on this set of marches. A written order of that kind is reversible. The inspectorate's 18 files are the route by which it would become a lasting ban, or be lifted.

What Lecornu offered the same evening

Prime minister Sébastien Lecornu spoke to the country on Wednesday night. He said France could not be indifferent to the students, and that the anger did not come from nowhere. He said the government would review the demands and present proposals at the end of October, on issues ranging from renovating buildings to making more teachers available. He gave no figures, no list of schools, and no sum. The end-of-October date is the only deadline on the table.

The protests have run for about two weeks. Students have tied them to learning conditions and to a fall in French teenagers' reading and maths scores over the past decade, a drop recorded in successive PISA rounds. Rights groups, unions and some opposition parties have accused police of disproportionate force. Nuñez rejected the brutality charge while stopping the grenades. The two sentences sit together: a denial of the general accusation, and a halt on the weapon named in the specific injury.

Lens, and the munition

Lens is a former mining town in the Pas-de-Calais. Monday's clash is the incident that moved the interior ministry, not the earlier marches in Paris and Lyon. A hand lost at 15 is a different political fact from a bruise or a arrest count. French stun grenades have been restricted before, after injuries in the gilets jaunes protests and in later marches, and then returned to use under revised rules. Wednesday's order is another of those pauses, tied to one city and one movement.

The unresolved mechanics matter for the inspectorate. If the boy picked up a grenade that had not detonated, the case is about a munition left on the ground and about the throw. If he was hit by a grenade that functioned as designed, the case is about the decision to fire into a crowd that included a 15-year-old. Nuñez said the first explanation is a strong possibility. He did not close the second. Until the inspectorate reports, both remain open, which is why the suspension is framed as temporary.

What the students still do not have

They have a pause on one munition and a promise of proposals by the end of October. They do not have a building budget, a teacher number, or a date for the next march to be policed under the new rule. The 18 referred incidents are the stack the inspectorate has to clear before Nuñez can say the Lens case has been shed light on, which is the condition he set for lifting or keeping the halt.