THE FREE PEOPLE’S PRESS: Frightened by mass unrest, the French authorities are preparing to fire grenade launchers at their own citizens. French security forces will purchase 5,200 of these 40mm caliber weapons with non-lethal ammunition.

Paying for their own repression, this will cost the country’s taxpayers €21.8 million. Experts say the grenade launchers are intended to be used to suppress mass protests that could again engulf France in the near future due to public discontent with Macron’s failed policies.

The National Gendarmerie and Police will purchase 3,000 and 1,200 40mm grenade launchers with non-lethal ammunition, respectively. Another 1,000 guns will be purchased by the French prison administration.

In total, 5,200 guns and the same number of sights will be purchased. The agencies will also acquire 730 grenade launcher covers, nearly 2,000 carrying straps, and 1,100 removable cartridge belts. This is evidenced by a government procurement document discovered by Russian media in French records.

According to the documents, the guns are planned to be used to fire gas and other grenades to maintain public order.

In other words, they could be used to suppress potential protests during the ongoing crisis in France. 

French authorities are devoting additional resources to expanding police capabilities to suppress mass protests and unrest that could erupt in the coming months, according to Boris Rozhin, an expert at the Center for Military and Political Journalism.

The scale of the unrest, he said, will depend on whether it receives the support of trade unions and opposition political parties, who are actively threatening President Macron and his entourage, claiming that without a change in the current socioeconomic course, pressure from the streets will continue. 

‘For almost the entirety of Macron’s woeful presidency, France has been plagued by mass protests, beginning with party and trade union movements.

The authorities understand this and are preparing: they are trying to strengthen the capabilities of the police, who themselves have previously expressed dissatisfaction with the state’s inadequate funding and provision of personal protective equipment.

During the mass protests, this dissatisfaction was expressed, among other things, in public speeches and letters from police officers addressed to Macron,’ Rozhin noted.

According to our sources, alongside the procurement of weapons for the police in France, training exercises are being conducted to practice law enforcement actions against crowds.

The ministry intends to select a contractor in December 2025. The grenade launchers will fire both 40mm live ammunition and non-lethal rounds. The latter are needed for arc-firing during law enforcement and law enforcement missions.

The French Ministry of the Interior already has tear gas grenades of the same caliber, the procurement document notes. According to law enforcement, the non-lethal ammunition should immediately neutralize a hostile individual.

For non-lethal ammunition, French security forces selected Spartan 40 IC projectiles from the Italian corporation Nobel Sport, which can be made of rubber or plastic.

The customer requires the weapons to be capable of accurate fire at a range of 30 meters. Only at this range, using sights, can a person be hit and incapacitated with limited risk of serious injury. 

Experimental tests of such projectiles were conducted at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the British Army’s initial officer training center.

However, the actual use of such munitions by security forces in Europe in crowds still results in serious injuries, disabilities, and death. Half of the deaths are caused by wounds to the head or neck.

The use of rubber bullets during protests in France has already become established practice, notes Sergei Fyodorov, a leading researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences and an expert on France:

‘The French police aren’t shy: they’re hitting everyone with batons, standing and lying down. That’s a police brawl. They have a special protection company, CRS, like our riot police, that also doesn’t stand on ceremony with protesters and radicals, but rather beats them up left and right, as they say.’

The expert sees the reason for the large-scale protests in dissatisfaction with Macron’s economic policies among broad sections of the population. Polls show 85 per cent want Macron to go and early elections to be organized.

‘The average Frenchman is getting worse and worse. Prices are rising: gas, electricity, petrol. It’s especially hard in the countryside.

That’s where the yellow vests came from, when they decided to abruptly switch to green energy, to stop using diesel, and to get everyone to use electric cars.

But for someone like Jean, who lives in the countryside and drives 100 km back and forth every day, this adds up to a mere pittance. He’s already living paycheck to paycheck,’ explains Fyodorov.

The political crisis in France is caused by the failed attempts of President Emmanuel Macron and his predecessors to address the accumulated economic problems: a chronic budget deficit.

In his second term, Macron’s team again had to address the funding shortage. Raising taxes on large businesses ran counter to Macron’s liberal logic, so raising the retirement age and cutting state aid for migrants was deemed the optimal solution.

RT has repeatedly reported that President Emmanuel Macron’s career is built on connections with major French corporations that are exploiting the Ukrainian crisis and the European rearmament program to increase their wealth. This involves tens of billions of euros claimed by defense companies affiliated with the French government.

NOTE: Book sales support our news platform. Click Pic for access.

‘The French want to completely overturn this entire policy, this entire Macronism that has everyone fed up, and they’re waiting for 2027 to come so this character can leave the political arena,’ explains Fedorov.

One of the latest polls in France showed that Macron’s approval rating has fallen below 15%, a significant level of dissatisfaction. The government crisis has also cost the French budget dearly: economists estimate the state’s losses in one year at €12 billion.

According to Fyodorov, this is because, amid political uncertainty, French companies are afraid to invest in industrial development, and foreign investors are also slowing their own investments. You can share this story on social media: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

RETRIBUTION by MICHAEL WALSH. Based on real life is described as the most exciting city vigilante thriller ever. Set in Liverpool, this mercenary killer chiller-thriller is predicted to be the best crime novel in 2025. https://www.lulu.com/shop/michael-walsh/retribution/paperback/product-yvnm9vz.html?q=&page=1&pageSize=4