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Student, 15, has hand blown off by police stun grenade during French mass protests
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2026
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Here, for you: A cop trying to pass as a protester launches a projectile to justify anti-riot cops charging what's otherwise a peaceful protest.
https://mu.social/profile/matd.eurosky.social/post/3mwxmpjqfdc2e
After that please come back explain about what "authorities" said about the protests.
We have videos and testimonies, full load of them. The state has "reports".
And some ****** have uninformed opinions based on their prejudice towards the platform they're on…
This is part of why I think nonviolent* protests require absolute discipline, including stopping others from breaking that discipline: clearly, the cops care about having a justification, however flimsy it may be, and the apologists I've talked to do use "yeah, well, they were attacked, so they had to defend themselves and keep the peace" as defense too. At least some of them seem genuinely convinced they're doing the right thing by curbing violence, and even those without any conscience at all may feel more emboldened if they know they have a justification rather than relying on corrupt superiors cover for them.
Any message about police brutality is watered down by reports of violent protestors "starting it".
Provocateurs provide that justification. Such people are the poison in any movement by throwing even carefully laid plans into disarray. But particularly in a nonviolent one, in an age of ubiquitous cameras, images of protesters stopping other "protesters" from escalating could send a powerful message to counter those claims.
* I prefer the term "nonviolent" to "peaceful" because an effective movement targeting the political will that sustains injustice can look a lot like a war. It's just that the "weapons" aren't guns, but strategic disruption and messaging. They have to be a nuisance that can't be ignored, and they have to show the resilience to communicate that they won't stop until they get what they want. That's all easier said than done, of course, but where "peaceful" evokes an impression of people politely asking, protests need to be confrontational - just not necessarily violent.
Way to reverse the blame on the victims again. Protesters can't control violent individuals. That's why you deploy the police in a normal world.
But you seem to mean the protesters need to do the police's job otherwise police will start crushing protests.
Be aware that
1.This would not be possible if the infiltrated policemen were not covered by both their hierarchy (actually they were most likely ordered to start a battle) and the anti-riot police. Anti-riot police know well how to go get an identified individual in a crowd. Were it a student, they would have done so, and not smoothly.
2. Over the last decade, we had countless of whistleblowers from the police force who were quitting over racism, sexism, gutted by the rise of the far right ideology in the police ranks. Pretend of being attacked is not to ease the decent policemen, it's to keep pretending in medias and court. France police is deeply deeply rotted, and might well be beyond salvation.
Advice to mitigate issues isn't the same as putting blame. I think you're confusing pragmatism for moral opposition. Cops being bastards isn't their victims' fault, but that observation isn't worth jack shit if they continue to be bastards.
When the police send provocateurs to help them crush protests, you can hardly rely on the police to also control the provocateurs. Of course nobody should have to do the cops' job, and not everybody can realistically stop someone from starting shit, but on a practical level, isn't it strictly better if somebody does something?
They won't suffer consequences, of course, but that's not my point. We both agree that it's the fault of the system for being fucked up.
On the other hand, if they were prevented from doing their job (such as other protesters holding them back from trying to attack), what are the police gonna do? Arrest people for stopping violence? I'm sure that's a great look.
It can be both, but either way, isn't it strictly better to prevent them from being attacked and undermining that pretense? Because that's what I'm on about: what can be done?
If you have a suggestion for how to deal with this problem, I'm all ears; that's what these discussion spaces are great for.
I just don't think "Shit's fucked, but it's not my fault" is a productive mindset. It's not wrong, just not very useful for unfucking things.
I hear what you're saying, but I don't think "self-policing" is a good approach either. If the perpetrator is an infiltrated cop, you'd be assaulted and charged for assaulting a cop (they act in group, and their colleagues will attest the cop identified himself as a cop). If the perpetrator is not a cop, it will most likely end in a fight and police will have again an excuse to intervene to "break up the fight"... by beating everyone.
The first thing I can see is document and expose them. The cop throwing projectile has been identified and his unmasked photo is now on Internet.
The second and even better thing is the propaganda doesn't work well: a farmer union just announced they will join the protest to protect the kids and add their issues, that they see all related. More teachers want to join the protests, another large general union wants to join the protests.
At some point, they won't be able to pretend everyone is violent and causing troubles.
Good points all around. Thanks for the civil contribution!
victims frequently are to blame and claiming otherwise will increase the number of victims.