A Brut video, shot by a Brut journalist (the version seen carries the credit “Images: … in Pantin”), is broadcast on Friday 2 October 2026. Its caption says: “A plainclothes police officer tries in vain to smash the window of a fast-food restaurant while several high-school students have taken refuge there after a police charge” (translated); a second subtitle adds: “After several attempts, the police leave the area and the students have gone” (translated). In it, in front of a window bearing the “Chicken Street” sign, a man is seen near helmeted police officers equipped with shields.
Actu.fr (03/10), which found the location, writes that the events “took place in Aubervilliers and not in the neighbouring town of Pantin, as Brut had presented it” (translated), in a context of face-off between protesters and CRS riot police; Marie France (03/10) repeats this location, citing Actu.fr. According to the journalist who filmed, as reported by Actu.fr, the police officer was trying to break the window because several high-school students had taken refuge there after a charge. The restaurant has not been located more precisely in the sources read: the coordinates of the entry are those of the centre of Aubervilliers, provisionally. Actu.fr also reports that the chain responded to the video with an ironic message, without commenting on the intervention.
An X account (2 October) describes a man who “hits the window several times with a baton” (translated), walks along the façade, passes in front of officers without being arrested, and places the scene in Pantin; the BREF_INFOS account (X, 3 October) repeats the scene in Aubervilliers, writes that the Interior Ministry has not commented, that no investigation has been publicly opened and that “this video remains to be confirmed: we do not know exactly what the police officer wanted to do” (translated). These two accounts are relays, not verified sources.
The former minister Ségolène Royal, campaigning for the left’s primary, relayed the video on X, writing: “Is it allowed for plainclothes police officers to act as vandals?” (translated) (Anadolu, 03/10). This is the reaction of a political figure, not an observation.
What remains open: the man’s identity as a police officer rests only on Brut’s presentation, repeated by Actu.fr; neither the Interior Ministry, nor the Paris police prefecture, nor the public prosecutor’s office has spoken in the sources read, and what the man wanted to do (to reach the students, according to the journalist; to break it, according to an X account) is not established. The fact therefore remains classed as “alleged”. Since Brut and Actu.fr placed the scene in different places, the entry retains Actu.fr’s location, which corrected the first indication.
What is missing to confirm
- The town: Brut places the scene in Pantin, Actu.fr in Aubervilliers; the sources diverge and the location retained is Actu.fr’s.
- The restaurant: it is not located more precisely than the town centre; the coordinates of the entry are provisional.