17 October: a grenade explodes at head height next to a protester in Paris

On 17 October 2026, between 550,000 people, according to the Interior Ministry, and 800,000, according to the organisers, marched across France against the rising cost of living, soaring fuel prices and the draft 2027 budget, answering a call that began on social media and was taken up by trade unions, high-school and student organisations and the Gilets jaunes.

That day, around 4:30 pm, on Place de la République in Paris, a grenade exploded above a group of protesters, right next to one of them. The scene was filmed and the video sent to the reporting number shared by Index, StreetPress and ViolencesPolicieres.fr.

Cross-referencing this video with other sources, Index modelled the scene in three dimensions. The explosion occurred about 210 cm above the ground, roughly 110 cm from the protester’s head. The characteristics of the explosion establish that it was a stun grenade; the exact model has yet to be confirmed (ASSD, GL-304 or EF-SON). The explosive charge of this type of grenade produces a blast effect and a sound level of 180 dB at one metre, enough to rupture an eardrum.

After the explosion, the injured man falls to the ground, face down. People nearby help him up; he staggers, and the right side of his face appears burnt and bloodied. According to the street medic who treated him, he had “fragments of plastic or metal in his head”.

At the same moment, less than 30 m from the site of the explosion, another injured person was being treated by street medics in front of the Vérines barracks, after being hit in the stomach by fragments from another grenade that exploded nearby.

These injuries are not isolated cases. On the same square, around 4:30 pm, a 25-year-old photographer had his femoral artery severed by a grenade fragment, according to Mediapart. Over the weekend of 17 and 18 October alone, the number shared by Index, StreetPress and ViolencesPolicieres.fr received several hundred videos and testimonies of police violence, and the IGPN, the French police watchdog, opened at least six investigations, including one into a teenage girl who lost an eye in Mulhouse and another into a teenage boy who lost a hand in Saint-Étienne.