"Macron makes us war and his police too." This is what chanted Tuesday, thousands of high school students on the occasion of a new day of mobilization throughout France. Although there have been few incidents this time - and the movement stalled on Wednesday - clashes between protesters and police have been legion since the beginning of the disturbances. The video of the arrest of dozens of young people in Mantes-la-Jolie, last Thursday, has thus become the symbol of police repression, denounced in all directions by high school students, but also by parents of students, teachers or teachers. lawyers.

Main object of tension: the "thrower of defense balls" (LBD), more commonly known as flash-ball or gum-bump. The question of its use, regularly asked, is all the more sensitive as it concerns minors here. For a week, several high school students have indeed been injured by these weapons "reduced lethality".

How many high school students were injured by flashguns?

Testimonies are piling up in recent days, sometimes supporting video on social networks, but the accounts remain difficult to establish. To date, at least four high school students have been seriously injured.

This is the case of the young Oumar, 16 years old. This sophomore was hit on the front last Wednesday in front of his high school in Saint-Jean-de-Braye, Loiret. Transported to the emergency department, its vital prognosis is however not engaged. "He was just there as a spectator," says his father to the Parisian . Seizure, the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) "will have to determine whether the use of the weapon complied or not with the law.

This is my neck. A very good student without problems and well educated by his mother. He was shot at face level. It could be any other child in this country. This act is unspeakable! Saint-Jean-de-Braye-school pupils # # # # GiletsJaunes flashballpic.twitter.com / bZrB8HYkCD

- Hyass (@ Hyass94) December 5, 2018

Prior to this incident, Enzo, an 18-year-old high school student in Term S, had been hit in the crotch while demonstrating in Meaux, Seine-et-Marne. The teenager and his mother filed a complaint.

In Grenoble, Doriana, 16, was also shot by LBD. "The girl has serious facial injuries that will cause an incapacity for work exceeding three months," said the prosecutor to AFP. Again, the parents decided to file a complaint, and the prosecution seized the IGPN. The student of first ensures that she did not launch any projectile against the police. "They started charging, and I felt a big blow in my mouth, it was a flashball, they shot when they were only 4 or 5 meters away," testifies. she in the columns of Parisien .

A 17-year-old student at Simone de Beauvoir High School in Garges-lès-Gonesse, Val-d'Oise, was also wounded in the jaw, without any life-threatening condition. Quoted by Le Parisien , always, a teacher denounces the conditions of the police intervention: "The CRS intervened with their flash-balls pointed on the high school students.A colleague wanted to speak with them to calm the situation, without success. pebbles were thrown by some students ". And the newspaper quoted a "police source" explaining that the high school student "launched projectiles". This one specifies: "If it was hit in the head, it is because it fidgeted a lot while being very aggressive (...) the shooting of flashball, triggered at a distance of 15 to 20 meters, was not a tense shot and involuntarily touched his head. "

In Lyon finally, a high school student filed a complaint with his parents against the police for "voluntary violence". The 15-year-old is "90% risk losing his left eye," according to his lawyer, who attributed the injuries to a LBD shot. "This is tear gas," said a police source told AFP, adding that an investigation of the IGPN had been opened and that it "is already well advanced": "the young man was seen throwing projectiles at the police and the answer was in the rules, "she says.

Other incidents of this kind have also been observed in Essonne or Val-de-Marne. Rue 89 also mentions a young man "hit by a flashball in the eye, several others on his legs or stomach", the week spent in Bordeaux. Similar scenes have also been reported in Thionville, Moselle, Bourgoin-Jallieu, Isère, Toulon and Hyères, in Var ... BFMTV also reports wounded in Paris. In Béziers, Midi Libre reports again clashes, saying that "a high school student was injured in the leg by a flash-ball".

On Tuesday, a 17-year-old student was still slightly injured in Saint-Ouen, Seine-Saint-Denis. According to the Ministry of the Interior, contacted by Europe 1, his injuries - broken nose and broken teeth - would nevertheless be due to his fall after shooting gum-cogne.

In which case can the police use their flash ball?

The use of these so-called intermediate weapons, because they are not lethal, is obviously regulated by the law. In theory, "a crowd can be dissipated by the public force after two summons to disperse remained ineffective". However, the use of force is possible without warning, since "violence or assault" is committed against the police or the latter "can not otherwise defend the land they occupy".

The conditions, they are strictly laid: the police must respect a minimum distance of 10 meters and are not allowed to shoot over the shoulders or in the "region of the genital triangle".

Would the police have orders in reverse? There is nothing to say that today. According to L'Express , this was however the case on Saturday, December 1, during the Paris demonstration of "yellow vests". "The CRS units in direct contact with the rioters were ordered to carry out firing of tear gas launchers at the height of man," writes the weekly, testimony of a CRS in support: "This is the The first time I receive such an order, it is normally outlawed because it goes against the safety rules, rather it is fired at ground level, but the units were in danger ... "

Can these weapons be banned?

Demand has been steadily coming back on the table in recent years, and recent events have obviously not calmed it down. "The teenagers are not guinea pigs of the maintenance of order (...) We ask the Minister of the Interior to withdraw immediately, as a precautionary measure, the launchers of bullets from the endowment" of the forces of order, On Friday in Libération , a group of 200 personalities, including the insubstantial French leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, but also writers, filmmakers, sociologists and historians, was indignant. The LFI deputies have also filed a request for a parliamentary inquiry commission on "violence against high school students".

Defender of rights Jacques Toubon had already pronounced last January for the ban of the LBD, because of their "dangerousness" and the "disproportionate risks" that they run. No question of disarming the police, have always hammered the authorities, even though the flash-ball is accused of causing the death of a man in a workers' home, in 2010.

Eight years later, the high school trade unions are again agitating this risk. According to UNL president Louis Boyard, the government "has created anger in high schools, today only he can appease it by acceding to our demands". A new day of mobilization is scheduled for Friday.