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Earlier this year, the UN’s human rights chief accused police of using “excessive force” against demonstrators, whom she said were denouncing their “exclusion from economic rights”. In an interview with the French daily Le Parisien published on Friday, Mr Heitz said that 174 investigations linked to alleged brutality by security forces have been launched in Paris. “Police officers will be sent before a criminal court between now and the end of the year,” he continued, without giving an exact number. He said: “The cases are mainly those in which the injuries were the most serious, with permanent disabilities, for example, most of which date from the first demonstrations in November and December.”

Several cases are linked to the use by police of rubber bullets, Mr Heitz said, adding no police officer has been handed preliminary charges so far. France is one of the few European countries that allows its police force to use LBD-40 “Flash-Ball” riot control guns, a non-lethal but highly controversial weapon that fires rubber bullets, which are banned in the UK. Human rights campaigners have urged President Emmanuel Macron’s government to ban the use of flash-ball guns during protests, but the country’s supreme court, the State Council, has refused to do so. Most of the 24 yellow vests who lost an eye in clashes with police blame the rubber bullets for their injuries.

Police have been accused of using excessive force against the protestors

Macron's government has been pressured to stop the use of flash-ball guns during protests

The Interior Ministry, however, argues that only 10 protesters have lost eyes in the sometimes violent scuffles with police, but has admitted that some 2,200 protesters have been injured. The ministry has also stressed that some 1,600 riot police officers have been injured since the start of the unrest. French authorities have been repeatedly accused of a heavy-handed response to the yellow vest protest movement, which began in mid-November over rising fuel taxes but quickly morphed into a popular revolt against the Macron government, widely perceived as arrogant and out of touch with the struggling working class. Government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye, for her part, has stressed that police must be “sanctioned” for the “illegitimate use” of violence. “[The behaviour] of our police forces has been exemplary,” Mrs Ndiaye told LCI television on Friday morning.

It's been announced that 1,600 riot police officers have been injured since the protests began