European court investigates France over protester losing eye

Europe's top rights court is investigating France for alleged "torture" and "inhumane and degrading treatment" over a French union activist's loss of an eye at a protest, his lawyers and the court said on Monday.

Published: 4 December 2023 16:10 CET

European court investigates France over protester losing eye

Photo by BERTRAND GUAY / AFP

Laurent Theron, then aged 46, lost the use of his right eye after being struck by a rubber-ball grenade shot by police during a demonstration against labour reforms on September 15th, 2016.

His lawyers argued the policeman who fired it was not under any threat at the time, but a French court acquitted him last year for having acted in “legitimate defence”.

“After a seven-year legal battle, the Theron case has taken an unprecedented turn with the European Court for Human Rights launching legal proceedings against the French state,” his lawyers Celine Moreau, Olivier Peter and Lucie Simon said in a statement.

Their petition to the ECHR invoked article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits “torture” and “inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment”, according to another statement from the court.

Theron’s lawyers said the proceedings could have significant repercussions in other cases of injured protesters in France, including during the 2018-2019 “yellow vest” movement against President Emmanuel Macron’s policies during his first term.

The case “raises vital questions on the responsibility of the French state in the protection of protesters’ rights, especially with regards to excessive use of force”, they said.

The “yellow vest” protests left 2,500 demonstrators injured in a year, 23 of whom lost an eye. Around 1,800 officers were also injured.

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Police intervened as dozens of students gathered on a central Paris campus of the prestigious Sciences Po university on Wednesday evening, management said.

“After discussions with management, most of them agreed to leave the premises,” university officials said in a statement to AFP, saying the protest was adding to “tensions” at the university.

But “a small group of students” refused to leave and “it was decided that the police would evacuate the site,” the statement added.

Sciences Po said it regretted that “numerous attempts” to have the students leave the premises peacefully had led nowhere.

According to the police préfecture, students had set up around 10 tents.

When members of law enforcement arrived, “50 students left on their own, 70 were evacuated calmly from 0.20am” and the police “left at 1.30am, with no incidents to report,” the police said.

The protesters demanded that Sciences Po “cut its ties with universities and companies that are complicit in the genocide in Gaza” and “end the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campus,” according to witnesses.

The protest was organised by the Palestine Committee of Sciences Po.

In a statement on Thursday, the group said its activists had been “carried out of the school by more than fifty members of the security forces,” adding that “around a hundred” police officers were “also waiting for them outside”.

Sciences Po management “stubbornly refuses to engage in genuine dialogue,” the group said.

The organisers have called for “a clear condemnation of Israel’s actions by Sciences Po” and a commemorative event “in memory of the innocent people killed by Israel,” among other demands.

Separately, the Student Union of Sciences Po Paris said the decision by university officials to call in the police was “both shocking and deeply worrying” and reflected “an unprecedented authoritarian turn”.

Many top US universities have been rocked by protests in recent weeks, with some students furious over the Israel-Hamas war and ensuing humanitarian crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza.

France is home to the world’s largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s biggest Muslim community.

The war in Gaza began with an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on October 7th that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

In retaliation, Israel launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,305 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.