Question 10933 — security of property and people

Summary

Ms. Gabrielle Cathala questions the Minister of the Interior about the intentional violence committed by agents of the national gendarmerie during the day of demonstration against the mega-basins on March 25, 2023 in Sainte-Soline, which led to the serious injury of several demonstrators. Two and a half years after the events, the General Inspectorate of the National Gendarmerie (IGGN), on the basis of more than 2,000 videos, 5,000 photographs, multiple interviews with gendarmes and demonstrators, as well as forensic and ballistic analyses, confirm that the four seriously injured people were all injured by gendarmerie weapons, in particular by the use of grenades (CM6, MP7 and GM2L) but also rifles (FAMAS), water cannons. The report from the prefect of Deux-Sèvres and the National Gendarmerie also lists 81 LBD shots, performed from moving quads. The organizers' count shows 200 injured at the end of the demonstration. Around ten people were transferred to hospital, around twenty mutilated or with a compromised functional prognosis. Three people even had their life threatening. The Defender of Rights, for her part, took up the case of two of them “in view of the seriousness of the injuries caused, possibly by weapons of intermediate force, in a context of demonstrations”. On November 5, 2025, the newspaper Mediapart published some of these videos from the pedestrian cameras of gendarmes deployed during the demonstration. These images reveal that gendarmes committed numerous prohibited actions, in particular firing tear gas and explosive grenades at demonstrators, on the orders of their superiors. THE The comments made are damning: “I can't count the guys we've put out,” “a real blast,” “a GENL in the balls,” “we're going to eat them, right,” “we have to kill them.” The article also underlines that the gendarmes concerned "were never confronted", nor questioned, about the content of these images and that the IGGN did not report to the prosecution the numerous "potential offenses" that they prove. Also, these revelations directly question the hierarchical, political and operational responsibility of the Gendarmerie and the State in this affair. The MP would like to know what hierarchical controls were carried out, upstream and downstream, on the use of CM6, MP7 and GM2L grenades during the operation of March 25, 2023 in Sainte-Soline and in particular on the firing conditions observed to be irregular. She recalls that such mutilating weapons should be banned in the country. She asks him what measures he undertakes to take to guarantee that no law enforcement operation resorts to prohibited practices and to ensure effective traceability of shootings so that no serious injury can remain without an identified perpetrator. The MP also wishes to know the number of gendarmes sanctioned and the type of sanctions taken. Finally, she asks him what public policies it intends to implement to guarantee the freedom to demonstrate throughout the territory and access to assistance for demonstrators in a context where all fundamental rights and freedoms are declining in France.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

Timeline

1. 11 November 2025

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• Gabrielle Cathala · auteur

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