On Sunday 27 September 2026, six lawyers publish a statement on X to denounce “police violence of particular gravity” (translated) against students in Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-d’Oise, arrested in the context of blockades since Thursday 24 September (franceinfo, BFMTV). They say they assisted these students in police custody. The students, according to them, denounce violence “both at the time of the arrest and inside the police station” (translated).
The fact in this entry is the account of a 16-year-old student, who says he received a punch in the liver area during his arrest, then a slap at the Saint-Denis police station (BFMTV).
The statement also describes the case of a 15-year-old student, who arrived at the police station with a bloodied face, and who says that police officers crushed his face against the ground when he was already injured, then that he received several slaps in the police station. A doctor examined him only six hours after the start of his police custody. According to BFMTV, which cites the statement, the police custody was closed without action and he was hospitalised as an emergency on his release with a suspected skull fracture. The primary sources read do not locate this police station: this case is therefore not counted as a fact of this entry (only secondary reports place it in Saint-Denis).
The statement also cites a third student who claims to have been hit in his cell, with police officers’ remarks reported (“Shut your mouth”, “The more he talks, the more I want to hit him” (translated)), as well as phones thrown or broken at the arrest and threats from one police officer to another young person. These elements are not located in Saint-Denis by the sources read either.
The lawyers announce that they have filed a complaint and referred the matter to the IGPN (police internal affairs) and to the public prosecutor “so that responsibilities are established” (translated). They conclude that these practices are part of a “mechanism built to terrorise this youth of working-class neighbourhoods” (translated). No reaction from the Paris police prefecture or the public prosecutor’s office appears in the articles read.
The date of the events is not given: only that of the statement (27 September) is, and the date of the entry is therefore the date of this denunciation. The statement does not name these teenagers’ lycée. Another entry on the site describes the intervention of 25 September outside the Paul-Éluard lycée, with testimonies gathered by another lawyer: no source read links these two students to that intervention.
On 9 October, franceinfo (France Télévisions) reports that several lawyers of teenagers placed in police custody “continue to denounce” (translated) physical violence, insults and “attempts at humiliation” (translated) in police stations. A collective of lawyers, the Collectif d’action judiciaire (CAJ), had written on 30 September, in a statement posted on Instagram, that a minor held in police custody “recounts having been beaten up in his cell during the night on the grounds that he exercised his right to remain silent” (translated); that statement announced the intention to file a complaint and to refer the matter to police internal affairs, “particularly targeting the Saint-Denis police station” (translated). One of the collective’s lawyers confirms to franceinfo, on Thursday 8 October, that “a complaint is being drafted” (translated) and says that “the students describe an insult, a slap, a head held to the ground, strangulations” (translated); on 10 October, franceinfo writes that she “intends to file complaints over certain incidents” (translated) (franceinfo, 09/10 and 10/10). These articles do not say that this collective is the author of the statement of 27 September described above, nor that the complaint announced then was filed.
What is missing to confirm
- A second independent source: franceinfo and BFMTV relay the same statement, which counts as a single source (titles read on 2026-10-05).
- The exact date and place of each arrest, and the lycée concerned; the place of police custody of the 15-year-old student is specified only by secondary reports that do not cite the statement.
- A version from the Paris police prefecture or the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office, and the status of the complaint and of the referral to the IGPN (franceinfo writes on 9 October that a complaint is “being drafted” (translated) for a collective of lawyers whose link with this statement is not established).
- A medical report for the blow to the liver of the 16-year-old student; for the 15-year-old student, the place of his arrest and of his police custody, and a report of his hospitalisation.
- Not read: ici.fr (cited by a law firm as relaying the statement), the original post on X (account not accessible without logging in).