UN Experts Criticize France's Response to Student Protests
Is France crushing teenagers' right to protest or restoring order against violent rioters?
Story
Above: A protester faces police officers as clashes erupt on the sidelines of a demonstration in Toulouse, southwestern France, on Oct. 24. Image credit: Matthieu Rondel/AFP/Getty Images
The Facts
- Four rapporteurs mandated by the U.N. Human Rights Council on Wednesday condemned as "unjustifiable" the tactics French security forces used against student protests, calling the arrests and detentions disproportionate.
- The experts said alleged excessive use of force, violence and mass arrests are not appropriate responses to a social protest movement in a state governed by the rule of law, and called injuries to underage demonstrators "unjustifiable."
- The rapporteurs flagged police tactics, including a Lille incident in which a teenager lost a hand after a grenade exploded, and said detentions affecting several thousand deter demonstrators from exercising free expression.
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The Spin
Left narrative
Beating minors into the hospital is no way to answer young people asking for schools that actually work. A democracy that leans on mass arrests and riot batons to silence teenagers has already lost the argument. Rule of law means protest gets protected instead of being punished.
Right narrative
Torching town halls, burning schools and attacking teachers and police officers goes well beyond peaceful protest. Officers facing that kind of violence have every right to restore order, and arrests are the predictable result. Lecturing France while ignoring regimes that massacre their own people is selective outrage.
