'We are effectively maiming young people' - expert questions France's response to student protests

Home France To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: © France 24 08:50 Issued on: 05/10/2026 - 22:08Modified: 05/10/2026 - 22:09 A 15-year-old lost a hand on Monday picking up a police grenade amid nationwide school protests demanding better funding and classroom conditions. Speaking with FRANCE 24's Mark Owen, Ariane Bogain, Senior Lecturer in French Politics at Northumbria University, says that "there is a definite issue with violence and we need to ask why there is this unidimensional reaction which is aggressive, which is riot police, which is repressive". Keywords for this article