The IGPN is opening an investigation to determine the circumstances in which a trade unionist was seriously injured in the eye, on the sidelines of a demonstration against the pension reform in Paris. The investigation was opened at the end of March.
Sébastien N., SUD-Rail union representative and 46-year-old railway agent, “was heard as a victim” on April 21 at the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), said the prosecution, confirming information from Mediapart . The public prosecutor told AFP that it had seized the IGPN on March 30, after receiving a report, on March 27, from a senator “reporting several videos circulating on social networks” which showed scenes of a demonstration that took place on March 23 in the capital.
A permanent disability
The investigation, opened for intentional violence by a person holding public authority, first consisted of “identifying the victim” visible on the videos, in particular by contacting the trade unionist’s federation, explained the prosecution. The IGPN then “offered him an appointment”, he explains. The investigations are continuing, the police force currently exploiting “videos recovered from social networks and video surveillance of public roads”.
Sébastien N. had also sent, in mid-April, a complaint against X to the prosecution for aggravated willful violence “resulting in mutilation or permanent infirmity”.
“A general context of repression of police violence”
“Sébastien N. will never recover his sight”, lamented his lawyer Aïnoha Pascual on Wednesday, affirming “in view of the first elements” that the trade unionist had been injured by a disencirclement grenade shot “even as he was walking with his son. (…) within the procession and several tens of meters from the police”. Me Pascual denounced in his press release “a general context of repression of police violence” and castigated an “assumed desire to deter through fear by marking the flesh and the spirits”.
Since the first day of mobilization against the pension reform in January, the IGPN has been seized of “59 judicial inquiries” according to the director of the IGPN, Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, who spoke last week on France Info.