On Tuesday 29 September 2026, students blockade the Blaise-Cendrars lycée in Sevran. According to StreetPress, which reports testimonies from students, parents and teachers, the gathering was “calm” and “peaceful” until 9:30 a.m., when a fire of two cardboard boxes and three cans is put out by a police officer; the arrival of mounted police then creates a panic movement, tear gas is fired and three students are placed in police custody.
According to the account of a student’s parent reported by StreetPress, she was reportedly surrounded by two horses, pushed to move forward and kicked in the back with boots before collapsing in an asthma attack. According to several witnesses quoted by StreetPress, police officers reportedly hurled insults, including a mocking first name addressed to a Black student (these events are not established by any other source read). Two mothers say they filed a complaint (according to Le Monde, quoted by StreetPress). A student, placed in police custody, says he was pinned to the ground by four police officers, one of them putting a knee on his skull, that he was punched and injured his leg when falling; he is summoned to court for violence against a person holding public authority (StreetPress).
On 29 September at 4:38 p.m. (UTC), the member of parliament for the constituency, Clémentine Autain, writes on X that she has referred the matter to the Paris police prefect; she says she has it from “several sources” that there was a “chase of young people by the police throughout Sevran”, three police custody placements, “a flash ball shot to the legs of a parents’ representative while a human chain was forming to protect the young people” and numerous insults from police officers towards young people and educational staff (allegations by an elected official) (translated). She tells Le Nouvel Obs of a “good-natured” gathering and a fire put out with a shoe, then a chase when the mounted police arrived; she relays the injury of a teenager who received blows to the knees, whose parents reportedly filed a complaint. According to StreetPress, the student placed in police custody also reports that a police officer told him in the car: “If I had the flash-ball loaded, I would have shot you” (translated) (remarks reported by him alone).
Paris police prefecture’s version: the young people reportedly tried to damage the gate, burned rubbish and threw projectiles and firework mortars at law enforcement, notably the mounted brigade; no insult has been brought to its attention. It blames the three people held in police custody for firing and throwing mortars. The Interior Minister said, in a statement quoted by StreetPress, that the forces had intervened in the schools “with discernment, proportionality and control of force” (translated).
Follow-up
The IGPN (police internal affairs) has been called in on events in Sevran, the Interior Minister announces on 30 September (TF1 Info); he did not detail the grounds (Le Nouvel Obs). The IGPN told AFP it had been called in on an investigation (StreetPress). According to ICI (02/10), this is a second referral to the IGPN, on Tuesday, after a student was hit in the legs by an LBD shot outside the school. Two mothers say they filed a complaint (Le Monde, quoted by StreetPress). The exact number of people injured is not established in any of the sources read: the entry does not give a figure.
In the version updated on 13 October of its overview of the investigations entrusted to the IGPN, ICI (Radio France) specifies that two of them concern events that took place in Seine-Saint-Denis and quotes the Bobigny public prosecutor, who tells the newspaper Le Monde (article not read, paid access): “A blow by an officer on horseback, an insult and an LBD shot received on the thigh of one of the complainants are alleged” (translated). The same ICI article writes that “in Sevran on Thursday 1 October, a student who was protesting outside the Blaise-Cendrars lycée was hit in the legs by an LBD shot” (translated), a date and a description of the person hit that differ from those retained here (29 September; a student or a parents’ representative depending on the sources): the sources do not allow the matter to be settled.