Maïssa, 18, loses eye after police grenade during October 17 protest in Mulhouse, France, Digi Mart USA News (Mulhouse, France): On Friday, November 6, several members of La France insoumise, who sit on the parliamentary commission of inquiry into October 17, received Maïssa at the National Assembly in Paris. Her life changed during a day of mobilization.
The student lost her left eye at the margins of a demonstration in Mulhouse, probably because of a tear gas grenade.
An IGPN investigation has been opened, as have more than 80 others since the high school student movement began. Present at the National Assembly, the 18-year-old wants to testify in order to move forward.
On the afternoon of October 17, Maïssa had not planned to demonstrate. She was in Mulhouse to meet her best friends.
“We went shopping, we went out to eat, and then we ended up in the demonstration,” she recalls. They stayed out of curiosity.
“People were singing and dancing. There was Michael Jackson music.
There were characters, people in wheelchairs, mothers with strollers and children too. It was a good atmosphere.”
The student says she did not see the grenade coming and did not hear any warnings. “I heard nothing and suddenly I was hit in the eye, sharp pain.
When I took my hand away from my eye, I saw blood, and that’s when I realized it was serious,” she says.
Three weeks after “these events,” as she puts it, Maïssa still wears a bandage and a plastic shield over her eye. She has undergone two operations, one of them on her 18th birthday.
She explains that she suffered an “orbital floor fracture.”
“I would like justice to be done.” The first-year student of applied foreign languages in English and German will never regain sight in her left eye. “The first days were hard.
Every day I woke up and cried. Now I have accepted the situation a little more,” she says, her voice trembling.
She says she still feels somewhat lost. “I still have a great fear of walking in my own city.”
“I also have this sadness because my life changed suddenly. I did not deserve this.
No one deserves this. I try to go out anyway, even though it is hard because of people’s looks,” she says.
Maïssa suffers from chronic fatigue and recurring migraines. She is not expected to return to university this year, nor to demonstrate, out of “fear of losing a second eye.” She is not an activist, but since her injury she wants to get involved.
“Young people should start being taken seriously. And I would like that to change, for these weapons to be removed.
Because these are weapons with consequences that cannot be undone,” she says.
She is considering testifying before the parliamentary commission of inquiry into October 17. Maïssa is doing her best to hold on.
Her mother, Cindy, is very angry at the police. “I would like justice to be done.
For them to find the person who did this to her and for that person to no longer perform their duties. Even just for her and for all the others who could follow.
That would be a great victory.”
For now, the IGPN investigation has not identified the officer who fired the shot. Maïssa’s lawyer, Maître Pierre Brunisso, says it was an irregular shot.
“This officer fired a direct shot. What we expect is his suspension.
Because today, the Interior Minister, Mr. Nuñez, has not ordered any administrative suspension of officers since the high school students’ movement began,” Brunisso said.
The lawyer has also referred the case to the Defender of Rights.
