French police face uproar after 15-year-old boy loses both hands to stun grenade at school protest

Evan, a 15-year-old carpentry student in Lens, northern France, lost his left hand entirely and several fingers from his right hand when a police stun grenade exploded outside a school protest on 5 October. His lawyer Bertrand Wattez says the boy had arrived to attend class, not to protest, and calls the injuries "war-like." Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has told the French Senate that police are investigating 36 allegations of officer violence, including four children allegedly "mutilated" by explosive weapons.

France has now entered its fourth week of the largest youth protest movement the country has seen in decades, with hundreds of high schools blockaded over absent teachers and crumbling buildings.

Of the 8,000 people taken into custody over recent weeks, a striking number are minors, with some children in detention reporting beatings and racial abuse by officers.

The crisis is casting a shadow over President Macron's final months in office, with some police officers themselves turning against the government's management of the unrest as the country moves toward next year's presidential election.