French school protests turn darker as teenager loses hand in grenade blast in Lens

France’s student protests produced their gravest injury yet on Monday, when a 15-year-old boy lost a hand after a grenade fired by riot police exploded near a vocational high school in the northern town of Lens.

The boy was hurt in clashes outside the Auguste-Béhal school on Monday morning. A police union source told AFP he appeared to have picked up a sting-ball grenade and tried to throw it back before it exploded in his hand; the Béthune prosecutor said investigators have not yet established whether he picked the device up or it landed on him. The teenager was taken to hospital in Lille and is “out of danger”, Pas-de-Calais prefect François-Xavier Lauch said. The police watchdog, the IGPN, has been assigned an inquiry for “violence resulting in mutilation and permanent disability”.

Education minister Edouard Geffray called the injury “humanly dramatic” and said 190 pupils had been injured since the protests began. AFP puts the toll higher: 215 students and 715 police hurt, with ten watchdog inquiries open. More than 400 of France’s 3,700 lycées were fully or partially closed on Monday, and the education minister said 24 schools have been burned or ransacked.

The movement, which began on 17 September at a school in Créteil over teacher shortages and crumbling classrooms, now faces a “black week”: a secondary-school union has dubbed Tuesday’s planned demonstrations “Act III”. The French Human Rights League accused security forces of disproportionate methods against minors.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu on Sunday urged local authorities to fill teacher gaps and called a Tuesday meeting with regional presidents on rebuilding schools; his government is pushing a bill to make those who damage public property pay, drawing an attack from the CGT union chief.

Sources

• Channel NewsAsia (AFP) — Teenager loses hand picking up grenade in France school protests: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/france-protests-grenade-schools-students-6433971
• Al Jazeera (AFP) — Teenager loses hand in blast amid French school protest clashes: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/5/students-continue-to-protest-in-france-as-hundreds-of-schools-close
• Le Monde — High school protests: What we know about injuries among demonstrators and police: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/10/06/high-school-protests-what-we-know-about-injuries-among-demonstrators-and-police_6758279_7.html
• Jamaica Observer (AFP) — Teenager loses hand picking up grenade in France school protests: https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2026/10/05/teenager-loses-hand-picking-grenade-france-school-protests-20261006-0053-502361/