On Friday 2 October 2026 at around 9:15 a.m., near the Gustave-Courbet lycée in Belfort, a plainclothes police officer arrests a young man whom he has isolated from the crowd as far as a watercourse: according to the prosecutor, the young man is “suspected of having started a fire on the grassy area” (translated) near the school (franceinfo). A few minutes later, the police officer is beaten by a group; this attack is described in the linked case.
Videos of the arrest, shot just before, have circulated: internet users and a member of parliament believe the police officer tried to “drown” the young person. The prosecutor firmly disputes this: the police officer made him kneel, handcuffed him and then lifted him up, and the young person “is in good health” (translated). These images were authenticated by the prosecutor (franceinfo). On 4 October, the prosecutor adds that the young person was “pinned face against the water” (translated) in a stream “nineteen centimetres at its deepest point” (translated), and that the student, confronted with the images in police custody, acknowledged that the police officer was carrying out his arrest and had not tried to drown him (franceinfo, ICI, La Libre).
StreetPress reconstructed the sequence on 4 October. In the video of the river, the police officer holds the student in the water with both hands for about twenty seconds in an attempt to handcuff him; according to StreetPress, neither the images nor the testimonies make it possible to state that his face was immersed, and the prosecutor speaks of “two seconds” in the water, without immersion of the face (translated). A doctor who came to help the injured police officer, after announcing her profession, states that she was sprayed with tear gas without warning by the second plainclothes police officer, which two adults present and several students confirm to StreetPress.
The arresting police officer is in plain clothes, alone at the time of the arrest, and belongs to the territorial intelligence service according to the press; the prosecutor and the Interior Minister confirm he is a police officer. According to two teachers quoted by StreetPress, three plainclothes police officers, with cameras around their necks and telescopic batons on their belts, had been watching the clashes between high-school students and CRS riot police in front of the school for several days; this detail rests on that single testimony.
Follow-up
On 4 October, the lawyer of the student arrested in the river announces a complaint against the police officer for attempted murder and complicity by instigation (franceinfo, ICI, citing AFP); France 2 (franceinfo) writes that the student also filed a complaint against the Interior Minister for complicity in attempted murder: he states that the young person’s head was held under water and that the prosecutor lied. The prosecutor maintains his version, a stream nineteen centimetres deep at its deepest, and says he is not aware of the complaint. As of 4 October, the actual filing of this complaint, its registration by a public prosecutor’s office and any referral to the IGPN (police internal affairs) were not confirmed by any authority in the sources read.
On 5 October, franceinfo (Radio France) interviews the lawyer of the 17-year-old student, who says that the prosecutor “behaves like the lawyer of the police officer” (translated), states that no investigation is examining the hypothesis of an attempted drowning, and challenges his client’s statements in police custody. He states that the prosecutor “lied” (translated) in saying he was not aware of a complaint for attempted murder, when it had reportedly already been filed with his services and signed before the press conference of Sunday 4 October; he says his client may have given in police custody his impression of the police officer’s intent without grasping its significance, and maintains that his head was immersed twice (franceinfo, 05/10). The prosecutor, for his part, had quoted at the press conference the student’s statement in police custody (“I don’t think he tried to drown me” (translated)); his possible response is not reported in the sources read. This version from the lawyer remained an allegation as of 5 October; the registration of the complaint is confirmed on 7 October (see below).
On 6 October, the Besançon prosecutor general’s office indicates that the complaint, targeting the police officer “and his chain of command” (translated), was transferred to the Vesoul public prosecutor’s office because the investigation is likely to involve a police officer who habitually works with the magistrates of the Belfort public prosecutor’s office; it specifies that this decision, “quite usual” (translated), in no way presumes the seriousness of the charges (20 Minutes, citing AFP). On 7 October, the Vesoul prosecutor announces the opening of an investigation for “attempted murder”, entrusted to the IGPN, “in order to guarantee the objective impartiality of the investigation” (translated); he specifies that the student, in his complaint filed on Sunday against the police officer and his superiors, accuses him of having “held his head under water” (translated). The student’s lawyer maintains that the police officer tried to drown him; the 17-year-old student is, moreover, formally placed under investigation for “aggravated violence” against this police officer and jailed, his lawyer having appealed this placement in pre-trial detention (franceinfo, citing AFP). The Belfort prosecutor’s version (a stream nineteen centimetres deep, no attempted drowning) is not altered by these announcements: the IGPN investigation is to verify it.
On 14 October, according to Actu17, the complaint for “attempted murder” filed by the student against the police officer, transferred to the Vesoul public prosecutor’s office, remains entrusted to the IGPN; no follow-up is reported at that date. The same day, the investigating chamber of the Besançon court of appeal releases this student under judicial supervision in the case of the blows struck against the police officer (see the linked case); there his lawyer accuses the Belfort prosecutor of having had him jailed “to mask the scandal of this young person’s attempted drowning by a police officer” (translated), which the prosecutor did not wish to comment on (ICI).