Paris police headquarters has opened an investigation into a police officer’s assault on a demonstrator protesting last Thursday against the French government’s plans to raise the country’s retirement age, which allegedly led to the man losing a testicle.
This was announced by the Parisian police in statements to the BFMTV channel, detailing that the police chief has asked the Director of Public Order and Traffic to know the «exact circumstances of the reported fact».
The 26-year-old demonstrator had to undergo emergency surgery to have one of his testicles removed after being hit between the legs by a riot police baton, all this when he was lying on the ground and «perfectly harmless», according to his lawyer, Lucie Simon.
«A policeman first kicks him, then he falls and is left on his back (…) Then he is perfectly harmless when a policeman hits him with a truncheon in a perfectly deliberate manner in the genitals,» said the young man’s lawyer in a talk show on BFMTV, offering details about the facts, which were captured by a camera of the mentioned channel.
Simon has denounced that it was a «purely gratuitous act with an extremely violent blow», arguing that his client was not violent with the policeman, thus rejecting the hypothesis of a gesture of self-defense on the part of the agent.
The young protester has already been discharged, although he remains «traumatized» after the event. «His life is changing with irreversible consequences on his physical and mental health,» the lawyer explained.
Around 1.1 million people took to the streets last Thursday to protest against Emmanuel Macron’s government’s plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
