While the Minister of the Interior reported nearly a thousand injuries among the police since the use of 49.3, no figures are available concerning civilians injured in the processions.
Two hundred injured according to the organizers, seven according to the authorities, including two in a coma. The discrepancy between the results of the clashes around the “mega-basins”, Saturday March 26 in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), illustrates the difficulty, in France, of identifying in real time the number of wounded on the side of the demonstrators during gatherings marred by violence. The same goes for the marches against the pension reform. As the demonstrations for the tenth day of mobilization begin on Tuesday March 28, no assessment of the number of injured in the processions since the beginning of the movement – and especially since the adoption of the bill by the 49.3 on March 16 – does was communicated by the authorities.
The Council of Europe was nevertheless alarmed by a “excessive use of force” by the police and gendarmes for a few days in France. On social networks and in the media, images of demonstrators and journalists being abused by the police have multiplied. Since January 19, 17 investigations have been opened at the IGPN, the police force.
“We should go around the prefectures”
At the Ministry of the Interior, it is argued that the centralization of the number of injured civilians “is more complex (…) because the lifts are not automatic as for the police and gendarmes”. The communication service of the national police confirms that it is “complicated to make a census” injured protesters “at time T”since some do not report to the medical services. “We would have to go around the prefectures, which themselves base themselves on the figures of the emergency services”we explain.
On the side of the prefectures, precisely, the answers are varied. Franceinfo asked those where the demonstrations had been particularly tense last Thursday. In Rouen, the prefecture of Normandy reports 11 demonstrators taken care of by firefighters that day, including a woman “having suffered serious injury to a thumb”. According to testimonies collected by France 3 Normandy, this thirty-year-old had a thumb torn off by a disencirclement grenade. An investigation has been opened by the local prosecutor’s office to determine the exact circumstances of the accident.
Figures limited to emergency response
The prefectures of Bordeaux (Gironde), where the door of the Town Hall was set on fire, Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), Lille (Nord) and Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), did not respond. That of Lorient (Morbihan) only counted the number of police officers injured. In Ile-et-Vilaine, the authorities of the department have noted “four injured among the demonstrators, taken care of by the firefighters for minor injuries”.
“We can count the injured from the moment the firefighters take care of it: it’s our only possible recovery.”
The prefecture of Ille-et-Vilaineat franceinfo
In Nantes, the Loire-Atlantique prefecture also refers to the departmental fire and rescue service. “There is no official record of injured protestersdecides the communication department. Demonstrators can injure themselves and subsequently go to consult their usual health professional. In fact, the link between injury and manifestation cannot be established.”
In Paris, the figures are also based on the interventions of the firefighters. From Thursday 16 to Friday 24 March, “59 demonstrators injured in relative emergency during the demonstrations have been taken care of”learned franceinfo from a police source, who acknowledges that this figure is not “probably not exhaustive”. “Some present themselves in hospitals or are taken care of by the street-medics“these volunteers who help injured demonstrators, adds the same source.
Access for firefighters to the injured complicated
Contacted by franceinfo, the hospitals of Paris answer that they do not identify the injured according to their origin. As for the street-medicstheir national observatory estimates at “250” The number of people “supported” by the rescue teams on the ground between March 7 and 23. A figure which must be consolidated and which does not reflect reality, according to Vincent Victor, the project manager of the observatory. “The whole team is underwater, so we limit ourselves to the most obvious police violence”, he points out. In its report devoted to the assessment of the movement of “yellow vests”, the organization noted that only “one in 10 victims were taken care of by the firefighters”.
“It’s complicated to get the firefighters to intervene during a demonstration. The official injured figures are extremely biased and only represent a part of the victims.”
Vincent Victor, project manager for the National Observatory of Street-Medicsat franceinfo
For Vincent Victor, who also hosts the Twitter account “Police violence”the figures of the authorities on the injured side of the police and gendarmes are not more transparent: “They are opaque and unverifiable.” No details on the nature of the injuries or their origin are indeed communicated by Place Beauvau, the police or the gendarmerie, despite repeated requests from franceinfo.
A sensitive political issue
Even more than the number of demonstrators in the parades, which varies from one to two according to union and official sources, the number of injured represents a sensitive political issue. Monday, Gérald Darmanin announced during a press conference devoted to the security device for the demonstration the next day that 891 police officers and gendarmes had been injured since March 16, including 47 in Deux-Sèvres. On the civilian side, the Minister of the Interior gave no figures. He had welcomed on Cnews, Friday, that there was “There were no fatalities, no serious injuries” among the demonstrators opposed to the pension reform.
As part of the “yellow vests”, it was necessary to wait five months after the start of the movement for the authorities to assess “2,448” the number of demonstrators injured, against “1,797” in law enforcement. “When there is an attack on police officers and there is a proportionate response, yes, there can be injuries”, had estimated Laurent Nuñez at the microphone of RTL. And the former Secretary of State to the Minister of the Interior adds: “Just because a hand has been gouged out, because an eye has been gouged out, doesn’t mean violence is illegal.”