Jérôme Rodrigues is a popular leader of the Yellow Vest movement in France. During a demonstration in Paris back in February he was hit with one of the infamous flash ball projectiles fired by police, and lost an eye as a result. In the following interview from a French TV program, the journalist Antoine Peillon asserts that Mr. Rodrigues was deliberately selected as a target by the police.

Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:00 My sources tell me that Jérôme Rodrigues was targeted.

00:04 This man was becoming extremely popular.

00:08 He is charismatic, and this is for that reason that he was targeted.

00:12 “Jérôme Rodrigues was targeted, because he was becoming extremely popular.” —Antoine Peillon Coeur de Boxeur

00:16 I’m bringing testimonies told by people

00:20 whom I take totally seriously —Police officers?

00:24 Both in the world of security and in the world of the law enforcement, who tell me he was targeted.

00:28 Jérôme Rodrigues, who lost his eye at the Bastille [square]

00:32 in a Yellow Vest action, I think at the beginning of February,

00:36 I think that’s the day, in unbelievable circumstances:

00:40 he was totally peaceful. There he was even calming

00:44 the atmosphere, which was getting out of control, and first he got

00:48 a crowd-control grenade at his feet, and,

00:52 almost right away, instantly, a LBD 40 bullet

00:56 in the eye, which he then lost.

01:00 He lost the eye. He himself has no doubt concerning the origins

01:04 of the loss of the eye. He accused very quickly the shot of the LBD 40,

01:09 which was already being questioned [as a weapon] at that time; his attorney

01:13 did the same thing. The total denial by the Paris prefect,

01:17 by the Security Minister — let’s call him that — Mr. Laurent Nunez,

01:21 and by the Interior Minister Christophe Castaner,

01:25 who [all three] say: “it’s impossible, it’s impossible”. And finally it seems

01:29 that, several days later, a gendarme had to admit that

01:33 he did in fact shoot an LBD, even if he denied that it was a shot of an LBD

01:37 directed against Jérôme Rodrigues.

01:41 BUT, my sources tell me:

01:45 he was targeted. This man was becoming extremely popular,

01:49 he is charismatic, and for that reason

01:53 he was targeted. —So, precisely, I would like —

01:57 There was a fear that Christophe Dettinger might become a hero [YV boxer who punched 2 cops],

02:01 and that’s why he’s being martyred, that he’s prevented from… he’s being imprisoned,

02:05 in a way, to hide him, to forbid him to speak out, which is currently the case.

02:09 He cannot. Propositions have been made that we would both be interviewed at the same time.

02:13 We have to refuse it. —In fact

02:17 it’s not only a senseless act when a police officer

02:21 tells himself, “Hah, I could shoot Rodrigues,” we see very well that

02:26 those police officers who shot LBDs have their orders.

02:30 Yes. —This is what appears in the event. —So, there are

02:34 within the police, very specialized people, both in intelligence,

02:38 and in the actions which are consequences of intelligence, who are targeting the efficiencies

02:42 as special services commandos, when there’s a necessity

02:46 to defuse a dangerous situation. You can easily imagine that

02:50 in what are called BACs [anti-criminality brigades], which are

02:54 great users of the LBD 40. There are

02:58 allegedly officers who are very well-connected,

03:02 extremely well-connected with those police, the intelligence police

03:06 of the special services and of special action squads. —On the other hand, we tell ourselves:

03:10 still, that to do that — I mean he is wounded,

03:14 he lost his eye— but [even though] it victimized him, it doesn’t prevent him

03:18 from going to the TV studios and so on, and from becoming… —Denis, he had a very low moment

03:22 Yes. —You know there was one who spilled the beans not long ago.

03:26 Yes. —[Eric] Drouet, [another Yellow Vest leader]; he’s not the same type of man, but still,

03:30 still. —Yes. —At some point when you blind people,