Margaret Mercier

Nathalie Tehio, a lawyer and the president of the French Human Rights League, said the fact that only a minority of children's cases would end up before a judge raised concerns that arrests could be unfounded. She said: “There are a record number of arrests … Often, the legal dossiers are empty. In reality, this is more about stopping people from demonstrating. I think there is a sense of hitting hard to try to dissuade people and scare them.”
Tehio said: “We have received accounts of racist comments made. Lawyers have told us that their clients say they have been humiliated or treated violently or pushed.”
Romain Boulet, a co-president of France's Association of Criminal Lawyers, said: “Criminal lawyers are worried and raising concerns about the potential misuse of police powers to dissuade citizens aged under 18 from demonstrating.”
Mohamed Jaite, the president of the Paris branch of the leftwing union Syndicat des Avocats de France, has represented several teenagers stopped in Paris and its suburbs. “I have seen one youth limping in a police station,” he said. “Some have reported being humiliated or receiving racist and sexist insults.”