Man allegedly sodomized by French police sparks protests in Paris

Théo suffered severe anal and facial injuries during the incident, parts of which were captured on video. He was immediately taken to the hospital for an emergency surgery.

Police have claimed Théo’s pants “slipped down on their own” and his wounds were sustained accidentally, according to French media reports. An early investigation by France’s national police force concluded that the incident, while “very serious,” was “not a rape” due to the “unintentional character” of the officers’ actions.

Video shows an officer “applying a truncheon blow horizontally across [Théo’s] buttocks,” a police source told The Local. While investigators acknowledge that Théo was penetrated, they say it was unintended.

Théo and his family are urging the community to act peacefully.

“I would like to ask the residents of my neighborhood to calm down. I ask them to stop the hostilities because I love my city, and I want to find it the way I left it,” Théo told the French news station BFMTV from his hospital bed this week. “Violence is not the way to support me. Justice will do its job.”