In a statement on the days of 1 and 2 October 2026, the Observatoire des libertés de Montpellier (OLM, a group of observers linked to the Ligue des droits de l’Homme) reports, according to Le Poing, that at the Mermoz lycée, “where a fire had been reported on 1 October” (translated), BAC police officers “reportedly entered the school and fired gas from inside” (translated). The same article indicates that the municipal police, equipped in particular with shields, charged protesters around the lycée. Le Poing does not say, on 5 October, which of the two days is concerned; the articles published from 12 to 16 October date the municipal police charge to 1 October, the day of the Mermoz blockade (see below).
Attributed context: on 1 October, according to ICI Hérault and Hérault Tribune, young people burned bins and threw stones near Mermoz, and law enforcement responded with tear gas in the Antigone district; an OLM volunteer present outside Mermoz says there that she saw “a lot of gassing” (translated). These sources describe neither police officers entering the lycée nor a municipal police charge; their facts are not attached here to this scene. Mermoz is one of the six schools closed by the prefect on 2 October (France 3 Occitanie).
Follow-up
On 12 October, the observatory publishes a report that ranks “the quasi-systematic use of the municipal police” (translated) among the “worrying public order policing arrangements” (translated); Le Poing (12 October), which reports on it, and Midi Libre (13 October) place on Thursday 1 October, outside the Mermoz lycée, a “dispersal charge, led by the BAC, with the integrated participation of the municipal police” (translated): about ten municipal police officers are present, two helmeted units, shields at the front, “join the charge” (translated) running for several dozen metres, against a background of tear gas, and, at around 11:14 a.m., a new dispersal charge is described with the national police officers of the BAC. The observatory writes that the BAC directed the municipal police “on several occasions” (translated) and that municipal police officers were concealing their faces during the demonstration of 6 October (Le Poing, based on the report). A photograph by a Radio France reporter, published by ICI Hérault, shows municipal police officers near the halles Jacques-Cœur on 1 October.
The town hall’s version: on 6 October, at the municipal council, the first deputy mayor, in charge of security, answering an elected official who questions him, says that “the municipal police is in no way concerned” (translated) and that it was present outside Mermoz “to prevent any accident at the crossroads” (translated), the protections being “protective equipment” (translated); he then says that the charge took place while “young people or vandals were breaking down the entrance door of the halles Jacques-Cœur, a municipal building” (translated), and that “there is not a single image in which a municipal police officer attacks a protester” (translated) (Le Poing, Midi Libre). To ICI Hérault (16 October), he says he has initiated an administrative investigation and denies any public order policing action: the officers were “static” (translated) outside Mermoz and intervened when they were informed that a group was trying to enter the halles. The general secretary of the national federation of municipal police officers of the Hérault and Gard tells ICI that a municipal police chief who asked his officers to carry out public order policing “would be committing an offence” (translated), while admitting that the boundary with “good order” (translated) is thin. The texts cited by Le Poing reserve public order policing to the State; the entry does not decide between the two readings of the images.
The entry of BAC police officers into the lycée and the gas fired from inside are described by none of the articles read from 12 to 16 October: this first fact remains an allegation by the observatory, relayed by Le Poing on 5 October. No complaint or referral to the IGPN (police internal affairs) is reported.