This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

Feminist activists in France who have accused riot police of taunting and attacking them at a march for International Women’s Day have called for an independent inquiry into the violence.

Film footage showed riot police storming what organisers say was a peaceful demonstration, firing teargas into crowds, throwing marchers to the ground and dragging women down steps into the Paris underground by their hair or in a neck lock.

Videos of the police action at the end of the march spread quickly on social media, causing widespread outrage.

The Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, described it as “unacceptable and incomprehensible violence”. Julien Bayou, the national secretary of the Europe Ecology/Green party said the police violence was “absolutely unjustifiable”.

The criticism comes after several investigations were launched into the firing of foam and rubber projectiles against gilets jaunes protesters, causing serious injuries including the loss of eyes.

Members of the Collages Femicide group, which aims to raise awareness about the murder of women by current or ex-partners, said police were “upholding and creating an atmosphere of violence and fear”.

In a statement released afterwards, the group accused the French authorities of operating “outside of the legal framework and authorising excessive police force”.

“Around 40 police officers began to aggressively charge the demonstrators, violently throwing them to the ground. The police continued to gas, corral, club and drag women into the metro station. They carried out random and violent arrests,” it reads.

“Other women present were kicked and beaten with batons. Others were dragged in a choke hold or by their hair.”

Alizée Barrier, 26, a youth educator who took part in the march, said police hit her head against a wall then dragged her by the hair.

“They accused us of being violent but you can see from the videos the complete opposite is true. It could not be clearer. We were behaving absolutely peacefully and they charges us” Barrier told the Guardian.

“It was not just the physical attacks, but the sexist and ‘lesbophobe’ insults, the disgusting conditions at the police station where we were held and the humiliating behaviour of the officers, women officers at that.”

Katie Phillips, a Briton who has lived in Paris for 12 years, and a Collages Femicide activist said she had counselled women caught up in the violence.

“The police accompanied the march the whole way and were making ridiculous sexist comments about the women asking what was wrong with them and were they all having their periods at the same time. But it was peaceful and they were singing,” she said.

“Then when they got to where it was supposed to end they were faced with a wall of riot police. A couple of marchers climbed up onto cars, it’s true, but the police just charged hitting out with batons, dragging people by the hair or in headlocks, and firing tear gas.”

Phillips said police statements suggesting nobody was injured were “outright lies”.

Le Monde newspaper spoke to several participants who described a “disproportionate use of force” by the police and numerous “insults of a sexist nature”.

The equality minister, Marlène Schiappa, initially told journalists: “I was shocked to see how the way young women were treated, especially when they were dragged by their hair.”

She later appeared to backtrack, saying the march had not followed the agreed route. Schiappa said the interior minister, Christophe Castaner, had demanded a report from the prefecture of police in Paris.

Officers accused the women of shouting anti-police slogans, deviating from the official route and unspecified “damage”.

The ministry of interior did not wish to comment when contacted by the Guardian.

The Paris police prefecture referred inquiries to a statement that said officers had used teargas to disperse marchers who refused to leave. It accused a group of “several hundred protesters” of trying to force their way through police lines. It also accused marchers of throwing projectiles at riot police.

“The police forces finally pushed back the last protesters as well as a group of recalcitrant people who put up physical resistance towards the Métro,” it reads.

Nine people were arrested, one for violence against a police officer. Two face legal proceedings.

Collages Femicide has called on the French authorities launch an inquiry to establish if the police were acting under orders and, if so, whose.