On the evening of Thursday 8 October 2026, an X account publishes a video of about one minute forty seconds, filmed from a car in the rain, with the overlaid text “Look at this madness, he did nothing” (translated). It has been viewed more than a million times and was shared the next morning by a lawyer, who comments: “If it isn’t filmed, it’s police custody, immediate trial, conviction” (translated). The same morning, MP Antoine Léaument (La France insoumise) shares it in turn: “Film the police! It often makes it possible to clear young people placed in police custody for no reason and sent before the courts on the basis of false police accusations” (translated).
The video shows three young people standing on a pavement, facing helmeted police officers; one of the officers holds a launcher. One of the young people speaks to the officers while raising both hands, palms open, then lowers them, turns round and walks a few steps away. About two seconds later, a police officer comes running, seizes him by the upper body and pulls him towards other officers, who take him away; the image does not clearly show where the hold is applied. The person filming repeats that he “just asked if he could get through” (translated), calls out to the officer “why did you grab him by the neck” (translated), then follows the group by car, saying they are going to the police station. The end of the video shows about ten police officers on a bridge, then a junction by the water, at the foot of the dome of the Grande Mosquée de Strasbourg, about 250 metres from the lycée Louis-Pasteur. No blow is visible in the video.
That morning, according to the Bas-Rhin prefecture quoted by France 3 Grand Est and the DNA, firework mortars were fired and firecrackers thrown near the lycée Louis-Pasteur, pupils were dispersed by law enforcement and six people were arrested. The DNA reports, at 11:01 a.m., five arrests at the lycée Pasteur “for violence against law enforcement” (translated), then, at 11:30 a.m., a gathering of 120 young people outside the Strasbourg police station chanting “Free our comrades!” (translated); one of them tells the DNA: “A pupil was strangled” (translated). ICI Alsace writes that after the morning’s actions, MP Sandra Regol shared the video of an arrest in which “a police officer can be seen pulling a young person backwards by grabbing him by the neck” (translated). None of these articles of 8 October says that the scene it describes is the one in this video; the articles published from 10 to 16 October, summarised below, identify it.
Follow-up
From 10 to 16 October, the press identifies the scene. Pokaa (10 October) gathers the account of his mother: her son, a 15-year-old lycée pupil, wants to walk home along quai Pasteur; he asks a police officer whether he has the right to pass, then two officers arrive from behind and one grabs him by the neck and drags him backwards over several metres (the mother’s account). The DNA (13 October) give the same sequence according to his lawyer: helmeted police officers form a barrier, the lycée pupil asks them “politely” (translated) for his way, a police officer appears behind him, seizes him by the neck and pulls him over about ten metres. France 3 Grand Est (14 October) writes: “It is 8 October near the lycée Pasteur” (translated), under the tweet of this entry’s video; ICI Alsace (16 October) places the scene on quai Pasteur.
He is placed in police custody the same day, then released (DNA). His mother tells Pokaa that he was not examined by a doctor during the police custody, although the examination is mandatory for a minor under sixteen, and that a doctor consulted the next day noted “left cervical pain” (translated) and “an oedema at the level of the jugular” (translated). His lawyer speaks of a jugular oedema (France 3 Grand Est).
What he is accused of: according to Pokaa, which does not cite its source, only his presence and the fact of having had, at one point, his face concealed; the teenager says he was mistaken for another person (the teenager’s version, reported by Pokaa). In one of the videos, a police officer answers a passer-by who tells him he filmed: “We have a video of what he did before!” (translated) (Pokaa). The Bas-Rhin national police had announced on 8 October arrests in the Louis-Pasteur area “following damage and mortar fire at police officers” (translated) (Pokaa). Alliance tells ICI Alsace: “We were still dealing with burning barricades at the lycée Pasteur, with mortar fire. This individual was formally identified as having been in this gathering just before” (translated), and his colleague “did not carry out a strangulation, he simply carried out the extraction of an individual from a hostile crowd” (translated). The interdepartmental directorate of the national police tells Pokaa that the arrest method “calls for no comment on [its] part” (translated).
Procedures: MP Sandra Regol reports the facts to the Strasbourg public prosecutor on the evening of Friday 9 October (Pokaa). On 13 October, the family’s lawyer announces a report to the IGPN (police internal affairs) and a complaint to the public prosecutor’s office for aggravated violence (person vested with public authority, as a group); he says he received confirmation, from the ethics unit of the interdepartmental directorate of the national police, that “an investigation is already under way on the instruction of the public prosecutor’s office” (translated) (DNA). France 3 Grand Est writes on 14 October that the Strasbourg public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation after the video was circulated and that a report was filed on the IGPN platform. The sources do not agree on the subject of the public prosecutor’s investigation: Pokaa reports that, according to the interdepartmental directorate, it concerns “the facts alleged against the lycée pupil” (translated); ICI Alsace writes on 16 October that two investigations are under way “to determine whether the police officer acted according to the rules” (translated), one led by the IGPN, the other opened by the Strasbourg public prosecutor’s office, and that the family is filing a complaint “this Friday 16 October” (translated) for aggravated violence.
Exactly where the police officer’s hold is applied (on the neck according to the person filming, the lawyer, the DNA and France 3) is not clearly visible in the video; the exact reason for the arrest is not established by an authority in the sources read.