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France bans stun grenade blamed for maiming dozens of Yellow Vests

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France's is to 'immediately' ban a controversial police stun grenade containing TNT and blamed for maiming dozens of protesters as the Macron government seeks to counter claims it has failed to reign in perceived police brutality.

In use in the French force since 2011, the GLI-F4 grenade was widely employed during violent Yellow Vest protests last year because of its loud, powerful blast that releases a tear gas cloud thanks to 26 grammes of TNT.

The interior ministry and police unions have previously defended it, saying it has helped them beat back assailants bent on extreme violence, notably during clashes with “gilets jaunes” in weekly protests in France’s big cities.

Gregory Joron, national secretary for CRS riot police at the Unite SGT Police Force Ouvrière union, recently said: “Imagine if we had disarmed when protesters tried to storm the Elysée and the National Assembly. Do you want a coup d’état?”

But on Sunday, Christophe Castaner, the interior minister, announced that the stun grenade, which was due to be gradually phased out, will now be shelved “immediately” and replaced by another that contains no explosive charge.

Jerome Rodrigues, one of the leaders of the "Yellow Vest" (Gilets Jaunes) movement, lies on the street after getting wounded in the eye during clashes with riot police in Paris - Credit: ZAKARIA ABDELKAFI/AFP
Five people reportedly had their hands blown off by a controversial police stun grenade that France has announced it is banning Credit: ZAKARIA ABDELKAFI/AFP

“It happened, a few months ago, that police were obliged to use them (the grenades) to extricate themselves from a threat, and that protesters who picked them up were seriously injured,” he told France 3 television.

"This is why I think we need to withdraw the GLI-F4.” Gallic rights body Defenseur des Droits has long argued that France is the only European country to use explosive munitions against protesters. According to journalist David Dufresne, who has been keeping a tally of cases of alleged police violence, GLI-F4 caused 33 injuries, including five hands being blown off, since the start of the yellow vest revolt.

But in July last year, the Council of State - France's highest court for administrative justice - threw out a request by the Human Rights League and the CGT labour union to ban the use of the GLI-F4 as well as LBD stun grenades in public order policing.”

The GLI-F4 replaced an even more powerful grenade, the OF-F1, which was banned from use in May 2017 after the death three years earlier of an environmental activist, Remi Fraisse, during a protest over a dam.

Arié Alimi, a lawyer who represents several alleged victims of police violence and the Human Rights League, welcomed the “excellent decision” but said it “should have been made a lot earlier”.

“These grenades had stopped being made but (police) kept on using them for maintaining order and they continued to injure many victims, people who have lost an eye or a hand, people who have been deeply wounded in their lives and their flesh,” he told BFMTV.

Alexandre Frey, yellow vest who lost an eye on the 8th of December 2018. - Credit:  Magali Delporte
Rights groups say French police have overused rubber bullets and stun grenades but the force has until now argued they are vital for self-defence Credit: Magali Delporte

Antoine Boudinet, who lost a hand from such a grenade in December 2018 in a yellow vest protest in Bordeaux, said that its removal was good news but insufficient as “the entire policy of public order policing in France needs to be reformed”.

French police have come in for heavy criticism for alleged brutality and over-weaponization since the start of the yellow vests protest movement in November 2018, and in recent clashes with striking workers rallying against pension reform.

More than 200 alleged abuses related to police handling of the yellow vest protests were signalled to the IGPN police watchdog. During the first two-and-a-half months of the demonstrations, the police used rubber bullets 9,228 times, according to official statistics. Police say they too have suffered injuries and come under mortal threat.

But a string of recent videos showing alleged police violence have gone viral on social media, including one this month of an officer firing a rubber bullet at point-blank range and in recent days, a riot officer punching a blood-stained protester pinned on his back at a Paris demonstration, which prompted an investigation.

After months of stonewalling, President Emmanuel Macron warned last week that the “unacceptable behaviour" of some officers risked undermining the "credibility and dignity” of the force.

The French interior ministry has pledged to come up with a new police code on restoring law and order in the coming weeks.

But Mr Macron also denounced the "political nihilism" and unjustified violence of some extremist protesters, who have targeted police with paving slabs and other projectiles - in some cases apparently with intention to kill.

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