Paris prosecutors open police-watchdog inquiry after grenade wounds photographer

A photographer wounded in Paris

The Paris prosecutor's office said on Saturday, 24 October, that it had opened an inquiry entrusted to the IGPN, the police's internal watchdog known as the "police des polices", into a photographer seriously wounded by a police "grenade" during the 17 October protest in Paris. Prosecutors acted after the victim's lawyer reported injuries that led to his hospitalisation. The investigation covers violence by a person holding public authority, followed by permanent mutilation or disability, during a demonstration on a public road. It runs alongside a civil-party complaint the lawyer lodged with the investigating judges for the same facts, a step the prosecutor said was meant to stop evidence from being lost.

The lawyer's account

Lawyer Arié Alimi told AFP he filed that complaint on Thursday, 22 October, for attempted intentional homicide. According to the complaint, a 25-year-old photographer who had come to Paris to document the demonstration was struck in the femoral artery by a police grenade at the Place de la République. The complaint also alleges violence committed by a person holding public authority, with a weapon, and complicity in attempted murder by instigation. Alimi said the photographer lost more than a litre of blood. He said the opened inquiry does not yet carry the attempted homicide charge he had sought.

“He nearly died. The police did not come to his aid and let him bleed out on the pavement.”

Alimi also warned that more people would be maimed by these grenades, and possibly killed, and said the Paris prosecutor's office would now be accountable for that. The photographer remains in intensive care.

The Limoges town hall

In Limoges, the 19th-century town hall was badly damaged by fire during the nationwide protests in mid-October, and its wooden clock tower collapsed into the flames. Mayor Guillaume Guérin, a conservative who is six months into his mayoral term, blamed the French hard left and the rioters it supported. Two men, a 66-year-old and a 34-year-old, have been arrested, and prosecutors say they have links to radical-left networks. Guérin said he had received a message of support from US Vice President JD Vance but not from President Emmanuel Macron.

“What happened here will have an influence on the upcoming presidential election. This country is not doing well at all.”

Government response and curfews

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu visited Limoges on Friday evening, 23 October. Officials have banned demonstrations in several cities and promised more police over the weekend to prevent a repeat of the rioting. In Limoges, overnight curfews have been announced, along with a limit of 10 people on gatherings in the city centre. The protests began as a demonstration over the state of high schools and widened into frustration over the cost of living. The backdrop is a large fiscal deficit, and presidential elections are due in six months' time.