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 Strasbourg, 15,000 people according to the prefecture and 20,000 to 35,000 according to the unions march on this day of mobilisation “against the high cost of living” (translated) (Rue89 Strasbourg). According to Rue89 Strasbourg, a detachment of a security and intervention company launches tear-gas grenades at the march, which is split; a “pitched battle” (translated) begins around a bridge between protesters organised in a black bloc and police officers, whom Rue89 describes as overwhelmed. The prefecture, which says that “vandals” (translated) committed numerous acts of violence and damage in the afternoon, counts 27 police officers injured during the day, including one “victim of a head injury following a mortar shot” (translated) (Rue89 Strasbourg, ICI, DNA). The DNA live blog writes at 3:15 p.m. that, according to its journalist on the spot, “the police officers used LBDs (defence ball launchers), rue de la Première Armée” (translated) and, at 5:42 p.m., that tear gas was fired notably in the area of the Pont du Corbeau; at 6:27 p.m., a departmental secretary of the Unsa Police 67 union declares there that “the police response is truly very professional, without excess of violence” (translated) and that he has “not heard of any injured protesters” (translated).
Around 6 p.m., “not far from the Pont du Corbeau where clashes had just broken out” (translated), a small group of protesters takes refuge on place de la Grande-Boucherie to escape the tear gas (France 3, ICI). A witness cited by ICI recounts: “while the protesters were helping the shopkeepers put away the tables and chairs, the CRS arrived, it is at that moment that there was a shot” (translated). ICI places the events “following a police charge” (translated). A man collapses. A female protester tells ICI: “They fired a shot right in his face, almost point-blank, an LBD shot, it hit him at the level of the right eye, it was mostly at the level of the brow ridge […]. He was all alone, he had nothing in his hands.” (translated) ICI writes that the man is evacuated to hospital by the firefighters.
The student cited by France 3 says he heard the shot, then someone shouting “he lost an eye” (translated); on the video he then films, bystanders can be heard saying “He took it at point-blank range, at 5 metres” (translated). He specifies that he did not see the projectile leave and cannot assert that it was a police LBD shot. A trainee journalist present tells France 3 that “it could not have been a projectile thrown by other protesters” (translated), that “the witnesses who saw the scene spoke of a flat-trajectory shot, almost point-blank” (translated) and that several people attested that the victim “was not a protester, but a simple passer-by” (translated). Street first-aiders (“street medics”) hold a compress on his right eye, “under the eyes of a few CRS posted a few metres away” (translated) (France 3); one of them tells ICI that he was “almost unconscious” (translated). France 3 writes that the victim is attended to by the emergency services “about fifteen minutes after the accident” (translated); the student says that the firefighters could not get through because of a “wall of CRS” (translated) (“We didn’t understand why they weren’t letting them through” (translated)); no authority confirms this point.
The Bas-Rhin prefecture writes, in its provisional tally: “17 people suffered injuries of varying intensity. […] A young man of 27 was injured in the right eye” (translated) (ICI). Rue89 Strasbourg writes that the prefecture “does not communicate the proportion of injuries inflicted by the police officers’ own weapons” (translated) and speaks of a man “seriously injured in the right eye probably by a rubber bullet shot” (translated). France 3 and ICI headline a serious injury; L’Alsace headlines a man “seriously injured in the eye” (translated) and speaks of “a shot by law enforcement towards a group of protesters” (translated). The severity retained (“Serious injury”) comes from these articles, from the street first-aider’s account (“almost unconscious” (translated)) and from the evacuation to hospital; no medical report is reported. The loss of the eye, suggested by a cry that the student says he heard, is not confirmed by any source: it is not retained.
A representative of the union Unité Police du Bas-Rhin, cited by France 3, confirms a police LBD shot and explains it by the savings made on cartridges: “we have to shoot by guesswork. So, we do not aim at the head, we target a person as a whole, and it can hit the head.” (translated) Rue89 Strasbourg, which speaks of a “probable LBD shot” (translated), quotes him on the quality of the weapons: “On a shot at 25 metres, it is no longer a precise shot but a shot by guesswork.” (translated) No investigation or complaint relating to this shot is reported as of 19 October 2026 in the sources read.