A 15-year-old student has had their hand blown off after picking up a stun grenade being used by police as mass school protests continue across France, local authorities said.
The incident comes as nearly 500 schools are expected to be completely or partially closed following student protests across the country over dilapidated schools and classrooms, overcrowding and teacher shortages preceding a nationwide day of demonstrations on Tuesday.
Important safety tip. If you plan on throwing stuff back at the cops, stun grenades, tear gas canisters, etc, use a lacrosse stick.
Of course, having a lacrosse stick in a riot is an excuse for them to beat you mercilessly.
Of course, they don’t need an excuse.
I imagine the student thought it was a tear gas canister instead of the cops throwing explosives at children.
Relevant user name.
Tear gas canisters can get hot enough for 3rd degree burns.
In the comments, it’s mentioned that the police claim that he picked up the grenade, but there is an investigation into whether that is the case or it was launched at him directly.
Regardless of whether the kid picked up the grenade, the mere fact that the grenade was launched towards kid is already crossing the line. They always try to make the people focus other things. It doesn’t even matter to them whether it was shot at him or he picked it up. As long as the focus does not lie on them shooting the thing in the first place.
Some witness says the genade landed directly in his hand
That’s a weird way to say he caught it. The first sentence of the article says he picked it up. He doesn’t have to be a perfect victim to deserve sympathy or hold the pigs to account.
The first sentence of the article says he picked it up.
The article lies, because the police report it quotes lies.
These “protestors” set fire to schools and doused one headmaster in gasoline.
So we have gone from protest to just idiot violence.
this is obviously serious stuff, but here’s an argument on why everyone should learn volleyball
If in Canada, I would recommend a hockey stick. You can open carry those.
lacrosse net on one side, hock stick on the other
Bring the goalie mask too.
Of course, having a lacrosse stick in a riot is an excuse for them to beat you mercilessly.
Depends on the country I guess. Carrying a Lacrosse stick could signal that you are white and rich, so cops can leave you be.
Umbrellas are a valid option at a protest, with a little 3d printing, you could have an attachable basket to attach to the handle.
And then you can shield yourself and others by opening the umbrella as needed.
Brilliant!
Reminder that (some) policemen learned to ricochet rubber bullets off the ground. One comedian mentioned that in his set, said the bullet hit him straight into the nuts. As a USian he was obligated to appreciate the cool shot.
Lacrosse does not exist as a sport in France
If you tell them the name they’ll work it out.
It means “the stick” or “the [sport] stick” in French.
French ≠ France. E.g. the largest French speaking country is the DRC. Lacrosse, despite its French name, is a North American sport, rooted in an indigenous practice. What I want to get to is that it would be really hard to find a lacrosse stick in France. I’m trying to figure out what would be easily accessible at a sports equipment store. Only thing I can think of is a tennis racket or maybe in south western France the Chisterac, a basket-glove for playing pelote basque.
Yes i know. That’s why i said “they’ll work it out”
Username checks out
Maybe a big, brightly coloured plastic toy shovel.
Not thermoplastic, as yeah that’s not going to survive the heat of an active smoke/gas grenade.
So they have money to brutalize children but not to teach them.
Story as old as time
uh, the same “children” also set fires to schools and doused a Principal with gasoline.
Protests are important, but les enfants are going to need a lesson in le fuck around, le find out.
“officials said”
Oh, the cops told you that huh? And you believed them?
There are three rules when dealing with any police officer. Though if you only remember the first one you’ll be fine.
Rule one: shut the fuck up. Rule two: they’re lying Rule three: shut. The. Fuck. Up.
They fuck shit up in France when things aren’t going the way they want.
As it happens, France has some of the strongest worker protection laws on the planet.
If they’re not afraid of you, they’re only going to use you.
The police are learning it too. Let les enfants fight for what they believe in. Carry your scars through life and know that you earned them fighting for what you believe in. Or be free from scars and know you traded your freedom and your values for a little more “safety”
I think you’re missing the point that the government has been fucking around with these children and their families for decades and now they’re finding out.
Or do you only believe in FAFO when it benefits those in power?
So you’re cool with violence against children… get fucked
Nah, people will always try to spin it like they did nothing wrong to begin with. I’m not saying it wasn’t the other parties fault as well, but it’s NEVER their fault and the NEVER did anything.
It works across about everything. I used to fix iPhones (back when you could) and about 3x a day people came in with broken screens and it was NEVER their fault and they just couldn’t figure out how it broke. Save for maybe half a dozen that actually said “I dropped it” or “I sat on it”. They didn’t even have a reason to lie to me, I didn’t even care I make the same regardless.
Oh I love giving my atupid reasons the phone is broken. Like, it doesn’t just magically shatter, obviously I broke the thing. My favorite one so far is “Apple Care doesn’t cover heavy scratches, but to trade this thing in, it can’t have heavy scratches?” walks outside, takes off case, not so gently tosses phone into the air “You won’t believe this……”
Didn’t most people come to you and just say “It’s broken, can you fix it?”. I don’t mind admitting I broke a screen but I don’t feel like this is necessary information, unless the repairperson asks.
This is Lemmy, an anti-authoritarian anarchist bubble, where protestors are always 100% good and the state is always 100% bad. You can’t post balanced news reporting here. /s
It’s kinda funny how the left say they are so different from the right but use the same bubble mechanics where unwanted opinions are filtered out/suppresed lol. Horseshoe theory checks out lol.
Victim blaming is not “balanced news reporting”.
That first sentence of yours is very illuminating.
Here, for you: A cop trying to pass as a protester launches a projectile to justify anti-riot cops charging what’s otherwise a peaceful protest.
https://mu.social/profile/matd.eurosky.social/post/3mwxmpjqfdc2e
After that please come back explain about what “authorities” said about the protests.
We have videos and testimonies, full load of them. The state has “reports”.
And some ****** have uninformed opinions based on their prejudice towards the platform they’re on…
A cop trying to pass as a protester launches a projectile to justify anti-riot cops charging what’s otherwise a peaceful protest.
This is part of why I think nonviolent* protests require absolute discipline, including stopping others from breaking that discipline: clearly, the cops care about having a justification, however flimsy it may be, and the apologists I’ve talked to do use “yeah, well, they were attacked, so they had to defend themselves and keep the peace” as defense too. At least some of them seem genuinely convinced they’re doing the right thing by curbing violence, and even those without any conscience at all may feel more emboldened if they know they have a justification rather than relying on corrupt superiors cover for them.
Any message about police brutality is watered down by reports of violent protestors “starting it”.
Provocateurs provide that justification. Such people are the poison in any movement by throwing even carefully laid plans into disarray. But particularly in a nonviolent one, in an age of ubiquitous cameras, images of protesters stopping other “protesters” from escalating could send a powerful message to counter those claims.
* I prefer the term “nonviolent” to “peaceful” because an effective movement targeting the political will that sustains injustice can look a lot like a war. It’s just that the “weapons” aren’t guns, but strategic disruption and messaging. They have to be a nuisance that can’t be ignored, and they have to show the resilience to communicate that they won’t stop until they get what they want. That’s all easier said than done, of course, but where “peaceful” evokes an impression of people politely asking, protests need to be confrontational - just not necessarily violent.
Way to reverse the blame on the victims again. Protesters can’t control violent individuals. That’s why you deploy the police in a normal world.
But you seem to mean the protesters need to do the police’s job otherwise police will start crushing protests.
Be aware that
1.This would not be possible if the infiltrated policemen were not covered by both their hierarchy (actually they were most likely ordered to start a battle) and the anti-riot police. Anti-riot police know well how to go get an identified individual in a crowd. Were it a student, they would have done so, and not smoothly.
2. Over the last decade, we had countless of whistleblowers from the police force who were quitting over racism, sexism, gutted by the rise of the far right ideology in the police ranks. Pretend of being attacked is not to ease the decent policemen, it’s to keep pretending in medias and court. France police is deeply deeply rotted, and might well be beyond salvation.Way to reverse the blame on the victims again.
Advice to mitigate issues isn’t the same as putting blame. I think you’re confusing pragmatism for moral opposition. Cops being bastards isn’t their victims’ fault, but that observation isn’t worth jack shit if they continue to be bastards.
Protesters can’t control violent individuals. That’s why you deploy the police in a normal world.
But you seem to mean the protesters need to do the police’s job otherwise police will start crushing protests.
When the police send provocateurs to help them crush protests, you can hardly rely on the police to also control the provocateurs. Of course nobody should have to do the cops’ job, and not everybody can realistically stop someone from starting shit, but on a practical level, isn’t it strictly better if somebody does something?
This would not be possible if the infiltrated policemen were not covered by both their hierarchy (actually they were most likely ordered to start a battle) and the anti-riot police.
They won’t suffer consequences, of course, but that’s not my point. We both agree that it’s the fault of the system for being fucked up.
On the other hand, if they were prevented from doing their job (such as other protesters holding them back from trying to attack), what are the police gonna do? Arrest people for stopping violence? I’m sure that’s a great look.
Pretend of being attacked is not to ease the decent policemen, it’s to keep pretending in medias and court.
It can be both, but either way, isn’t it strictly better to prevent them from being attacked and undermining that pretense? Because that’s what I’m on about: what can be done?
France police is deeply deeply rotted, and might well be beyond salvation.
If you have a suggestion for how to deal with this problem, I’m all ears; that’s what these discussion spaces are great for.
I just don’t think “Shit’s fucked, but it’s not my fault” is a productive mindset. It’s not wrong, just not very useful for unfucking things.
I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t think “self-policing” is a good approach either. If the perpetrator is an infiltrated cop, you’d be assaulted and charged for assaulting a cop (they act in group, and their colleagues will attest the cop identified himself as a cop). If the perpetrator is not a cop, it will most likely end in a fight and police will have again an excuse to intervene to “break up the fight”… by beating everyone.
The first thing I can see is document and expose them. The cop throwing projectile has been identified and his unmasked photo is now on Internet.
The second and even better thing is the propaganda doesn’t work well: a farmer union just announced they will join the protest to protect the kids and add their issues, that they see all related. More teachers want to join the protests, another large general union wants to join the protests.
At some point, they won’t be able to pretend everyone is violent and causing troubles.
victims frequently are to blame and claiming otherwise will increase the number of victims.
You cannot respect authority and respect yourself at the same time.
Lemmy is at a particularly extreme level of violence endorsement. If the people on here said the things that they usually say in public, in actual society and not their little bubble, they’d be rightfully locked up.
I talk about how Trump should fucking die every single day IRL, and not a single person has disagreed. My boss agrees. My therapist agrees. Literally everyone with a working brain agrees.
I worry about him getting assassinated because of the backlash and potential martyrization, but overall I think the world would be better, and lives would be saved if he took a forever nap ASAP.
If you think that means I ought to be locked up, you’re a fucking fascist. Stopping fascism is the moral choice here. Ask people if Hitler’s suicide was a tragedy if you’re confused by the concept.
That hasn’t prevented members of the U.S. government or ICE from being locked up
Posts on Lemmy are viewable to anyone, same as any other place.
Less lethal weapons can still kill and maim.
Not even ‘can’ they’re more likely to.
Counterintuitively, ‘less lethal’ arms can be more lethal, since people fire them with impunity.
Almost melted my skin off picking up tear gas at Occupy Oakland. There were flash bangs. I hadn’t even considered what if I didn’t realize what I was grabbing.
Edit: same night I watch a decorated military officer in full regalia get shot point blank with non lethal shotgun. Right near the center of his chest iirc
That’s why they’re supposed to call it “less lethal” now. It gives them a loophole
Edit: same night I watch a decorated military officer in full regalia get shot point blank with non lethal shotgun
Based cop moment
The fuck is wrong with you
They’re a known character - classic fedora-controversial bad-faith shock reaction shtick. If your client has user tags, it’s worth dropping one on them so you don’t get drawn in.
decorated military officer in full regalia
You misspelled mass murdering terrorist
What does a valid protestor look like to you? What purity test would you implement to keep the movement clean?
If you’re a Marxist-Leninist, you probably already know that soldiers in the Tsar’s imperialist army switching sides and becoming revolutionaries was an important part of the Bolshevik victory. Just something to think about, idk
True actually imperialist mass murdering troops are based because of an unrelated event 100 years earlier.
The Tsar’s troops deserted because they weren’t getting food and they were getting treated badly by the Tsar. Meaning you should be even more thankful for the cop shooting the mass murderer because that encourages other militant war criminals to desert their imperialist regime.
This is why a lacross stick is a good tool at a protest. You can scoop and launch the grenade back without it getting in your hand.
Great time to practice your backshot too!
I don’t know what a back shot is but I would be aiming to get the grenade back towards the cops as fast as possible without getting it close to myself or others.
I would be scooping and launching it back in one motion, it might not go far but if you bring it up to swing the shot back it could explode above your head.
I mean. Did they try making sure billionaires get more while continuing to deprive the working class?
Centrist governments the world over, creating fertile grounds for fascist swings. Because centrists protect wealth inequality. Which is a tragedy of course because these fascist swings make wealth inequality even worse.
ACAB
OK, so I’ve been justifying Russians because it’s more risk if you go to a protest, and police can outright kill you without any problem (that we’ll know about and consider fitting), and a different situation and tra-la-la, but honestly perhaps there are societies more cowardly in general with children brought up in obedience, and there are better societies.
People here exchanging experiences of throwing nasty shit right back at the police and still being free (of what it looks like from their comments), - that’s something really inspiring.
And perhaps I’m a coward, haven’t gone to a single protest in my life, except for a couple of speeches with unfortunate audience, eh, not sure how that affected what transpired after.
