Jerome Henry

Jerome Henry was injured on November 24, 2018 on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. He did not want to speak to AFP but sent us a written account. Here we publish an edited version.

Why were you there?

My wife and I came to Paris to show our legitimate discontent. We believed it was our right and duty as citizens to do so. I work in business, my wife is in training and we have five children. Despite our constant efforts, like most people, it’s very hard to make ends meet. We are often overdrawn, even at the start of the month. Unfortunately, I’d realised that we were no longer living in a democracy.

What happened?

We were on the Champs-Elysees. It was chaos. I saw some people who were just there to cause trouble, but not many (...) However, the police I saw not far from these rioters weren’t doing anything - they were just letting them get away with it.

At one point, I found myself alone. I turned my head to right, just by instinct, and in a fraction of a second, I knew I had to get out of there to save my life. A police officer was aiming at me with a defence ball launcher and boom… he hit me. I felt an extremely hard impact, a ringing, buzzing sound in my head, but I carried on walking, walking quickly. It was definitely survival instinct. I didn’t know where I was going, I was bleeding (...) Then I realised it was really bad from the way people were looking at me. In that moment, I thought I was going to die.

What is your life like now?

I’ve been permanently blinded in my left eye, and have multiple fractures to my eye socket. I also have a plate behind my eye (...) I’ll need more aesthetic operations because two-thirds of my eye has been damaged. Since that day, my vision of life has changed.​