- On Twitter, a seven-second video showing a policeman about to pin an "explosive grenade" in front of demonstrators is highly visible.
- It particularly shocks internet users convinced that it is a grenade worthy of a war arsenal.
- It is actually a simple de-encirclement grenade, which has already caused serious injuries, and whose use by the police is subject to a strict framework.
His pomegranate brandished in front of him, a member of the police seems to be about to pin it down and use it against the demonstrators who face him, despite their cries of stupor. He will finally do nothing, a colleague finally grabbing him by the arm before making him back a few steps.
These seven seconds of video provoke strong reactions on social networks, where she knows a significant visibility. " UNUSUAL: a police officer calms a colleague about to pin an explosive grenade in the middle of the crowd, "says one of the tweets relaying it, even if it means raising serious questions among some internet users (" They have explosive grenades on them. ? Serious? ”).
UNUSUAL: a police officer calms a colleague about to pin an explosive grenade in the middle of the crowd.
🎥 @ LibreQgpic.twitter.com / VnkMt6NYqk
But contrary to what these disturbing messages suggest, the grenade in question - brandished during the Paris demonstration against the January 9 reform - is not "explosive".
FAKE OFF
"It is a de-encirclement grenade, and not at all a war grenade which could kill dozens of people, as we can read on Twitter", tells us Maxime Reynié, journalist and creator of the site " Maintenance of order ”, devoted to police systems and doctrines in this area.
“The use of these hand grenades for disenchantment is limited to a strict framework, when a police officer must extricate himself from a crowd or create a passage. It is unlocked at breast height but must be thrown on the ground. It is accompanied by a fairly loud detonation and the projection of rubber pucks, "says the Information and Communication Service of the National Police (Sicop).
The seven-second sequence is taken from a video entitled "General strike: police without states of mind", posted on YouTube on January 10 by the QG TV media: it is actually found in full from 17 ' 34 below, which shows that the police officer in question returned to his colleagues afterwards. Contacted by 20 Minutes , the police headquarters did not respond to our requests before the article was published.
A protester blown away by such a grenade in 2016
AdcaZz, the author of these images, tells us, on the other hand, of his memories of this day marked by "numerous unjustified arrests": "At that time, I was in the middle of the procession, and two people who were not demonstrating but just crossing rue Saint-Lazare received a firecracker, so they were shocked. Protesters stopped to ask them if it was okay, and the police must have been afraid of a crowd so they started to surround us. This is where the policeman took out his grenade in his hand, before a colleague dissuaded him from using it: if he had really pinned it down, it could have done great damage. ”
"It often happens that the police panic and take out the de-encirclement grenade to tell the demonstrators to back up", underlines Maxime Reynié, while recalling that, if the de-encirclement grenade is much less dangerous than the decried GLI F4 or that the GM2L, it can also cause serious injury. Particularly in 2016, during the mobilization against the Labor Law, when a demonstrator had lost an eye after the use of such a grenade by a CRS, sent back to the assizes to "launch unjustified".
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