On Saturday 17 October 2026, the Union syndicale des lycéens had called, like several organisations, to join that day the “large demonstration” (translated) of the “yellow vests” (translated) (AFP dispatch of 14 October, picked up by Sud Radio). In Saint-Étienne, the national mobilisation “against the high cost of living” (translated) (ICI) begins on place Jean-Jaurès, where “several hundred people” (translated) gather from 2 p.m. (ICI). The march initially proceeds “broadly calmly” (translated); it is on arriving outside the Centre Deux shopping centre, around 3 p.m., that “the situation began to degenerate with a tense face-off with the police” (translated) (ICI).
According to ICI, “thousands of protesters found themselves blocked outside the Centre Deux shopping centre. They stayed for nearly an hour, facing the law enforcement who were preventing the march from advancing. A tense face-off, with, on the one hand, firework mortar shots and smoke bombs and, on the other, the use of tear gas.” (translated) In its live blog, ICI writes: “tear gas on the one hand, mortar fire and fireworks on the other” (translated). France 3 and franceinfo repeat the same description (“tear gas on the one hand against mortar fire and fireworks on the other” (translated)). TL7 writes that, for nearly an hour, law enforcement and protesters face each other: “Law enforcement used tear gas while protesters were firing firework mortars and using fireworks.” (translated) Actu17 writes that protesters and CRS riot police “faced each other for nearly an hour in a climate of tension” (translated) and that “the police officers were targeted by projectile throws in particular, and responded with tear-gas devices” (translated).
ICI places in this scene the injury of a 17-year-old teenager, seriously injured in one hand (see the related case): “It happened outside the Centre Deux shopping centre where, for an hour, the protesters faced law enforcement: tear gas on the one hand, mortar fire and fireworks on the other.” (translated) Le Progrès places the detonation “shortly before 4 p.m.” (translated). No source read specifies the unit facing the protesters, the number of mortars fired or the identity of those who fired them, nor reports any police officer or gendarme injured at Centre Deux.