A police officer kicked a 26-year-old man in the crotch during a protest against pension reform on January 19.
An investigation was opened on Monday January 23 for “violence by a person holding public authority” after a 26-year-old man was seriously injured during a demonstration on January 19 against the pension reform, indicated to the Figaro the Paris prosecutor’s office, confirming information from BFMTV.
According to the television channel, he had to have his testicle amputated after being beaten with a truncheon by a policeman. The individual would have been released from the hospital, but he would still beshocked“said his lawyer to BFMTV. The investigations were entrusted to the IGPN (General Inspectorate of the National Police).
“An extremely violent and gratuitous gesture”
The injured man, a Franco-Spanish engineer living in Guadeloupe, was first thrown to the ground by a police officer, according to his account reported to AFP on Sunday by his lawyer Me Lucie Simon.
On photos circulating on social networks and videos broadcast in particular by BFMTV and AB7 Media, we see another policeman strike the young man’s crotch with a truncheon, who is still on the ground and holds a camera in one hand. . After hitting him, the policeman leaves. The scene took place at the time of clashes between demonstrators and the police, near the Place de la Bastille, with the throwing of projectiles and the use of tear gas.
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“It’s a blow so strong that we had to amputate a testicle. An extremely violent and gratuitous gesture that borders on sadism“, had estimated Me Simon, specifying that a complaint for intentional violence having led to a mutilation by a person holding public authority was in the process of being filed.
“It is a criminal qualification, we are not in a state of self-defense or necessity, I want proof of this from the images we have and the fact that he was not subsequently arrested“, she had specified. An internal administrative investigation was opened on Saturday, the Paris police headquarters told AFP. Laurent Nuñez,the Prefect of Police, asked the Director of Public Order and Traffic (DOPC) that the exact circumstances of the reported incident be clarified“, had specified the police headquarters.
The facts occurred, according to the police headquarters, “in a context of extreme violence and as part of a police maneuver to arrest violent individuals“. The demonstration had gathered in the capital 80,000 people according to the Ministry of the Interior and 400,000 according to the CGT.