The Council of State rejected on Friday the demands that it is no longer used defence ball launchers (LBD) during the demonstrations of “yellow vests”.
The State Council rejected on Friday 1st February, 2019 requests for suspension of the use of the launcher of defense balls (LBD) in the next events of ” yellow vests “, saying that the risk of violence made it “necessary to allow the law enforcement agencies to use these weapons.
Le Conseil d’État rejette des demandes tendant à ce qu’il ne soit plus fait usage de lanceurs de balle de défense (LBD) lors des manifestations de « gilets jaunes » > https://t.co/ulaUWedC5m pic.twitter.com/wARGCDkyLu
— Conseil d’État (@Conseil_Etat) 1 February 2019
An “escalation of violence”
In the middle of a controversy over “police violence”, the CGT and the League of Human Rights (LDH) had tried Wednesday in an emergency hearing to convince the administrative judges to ban this weapon according to them “dangerous” , causing many serious injuries and used more than 9200 times since the beginning of the social protest movement.
The highest administrative court ruled that “contrary to what the plaintiffs claimed, the organization of the law enforcement operations put in place during the recent demonstrations did not reveal an intention of the authorities not to respect the conditions of use, strict “of these weapons called” intermediate force “.
For the judge hearing the application for interim relief, “the impossibility to exclude the reproduction of acts of violence and destruction” in the course of the next demonstrations will be necessary to enable the police to resort to these weapons, which remain particularly to deal with such situations, subject to strict compliance with the conditions of use.
Wednesday, before the Council of State, the applicants had described a “escalation of violence” in the crackdown between the beginning of the social movement on November 17 and the latest demonstrations. They pointed to a massive use of LBDs, which has become “a structuring component of the level of violence in demonstrations”.
1900 injured since November
According to the militant group “Disarming them”, 20 people have been seriously wounded in the eye-most of them being wounded-by the police since the beginning of the movement. The 12th day of mobilisation of “yellow vests” Saturday will be dedicated to the wounded – more than 1900 since the beginning of the social movement according to official figures.
The Council of State “found that the use of the LBD had in the recent period caused injuries, sometimes very serious, without it being possible to affirm that all the victims were in situations covered by the code of internal security, the only ones capable of justifying such use “.
