‘Yellow vest’ boxer sought after punching policeman

PARIS: French police were hunting for a ex- professional boxer who was filmed at the weekend punching an officer on a bridge in central Paris during a demonstration by ‘yellow vest’ protesters.

The shocking images show the heavily built man land several punches on a policeman who falls to the ground and is then kicked by protesters wearing yellow vests, just a few hundred metres from the national parliament building.

“Sir, you knocked a colleague to the ground. You have been identified. For a boxer, apparently you don’t respect any of the rules. You are going to learn those of the criminal code,” said a tweet from France’s SCPN police union said.

The man, named by French media as 37-year- old Christophe Dettinger, is a former heavyweight professional boxer who reportedly works for the local government in the Essonne area south of Paris.

The French boxing federation issued a statement condemning the violence, saying that it ‘ ran completely contrary to the values of our sport.’

“The French Boxing Federation sends its support to the family and loved ones of the officer who was a victim of this individual, but equally to all the security forces who have been on duty these last weeks,” it said.

Dettinger’s former coach, Jacky Trompesauce, urged the father of three to give himself up to police after he was caught on camera on the Leopold- Sedar- Senghor bridge which links the Tuileries gardens to the Musee d’Orsay.

“There was something that set it off, which I learned overnight. There was a women who was attacked by CRS ( riot police),” Trompesauce told RMC radio. — AFP