Punched in the face … for objecting to wolf-whistler
IN appalling scenes that have shocked a nation, a young woman is attacked by a man after she complained about him wolf-whistling at her in the street.
The assault on Marie Laguerre, 22, in Paris was caught on CCTV and has gone viral on social media.
The video shows her strolling home from work past a busy cafe in the early evening. An unidentified bearded man, carrying a large bag over one shoulder, makes suggestive remarks and wolfwhistles as he walks past.
Miss Laguerre shouts ‘Shut up!’ but admitted later: ‘I didn’t even think he had even heard me.’
The man walks off but moments later grabs an ashtray and hurls it in Miss Laguerre’s direction, narrowly missing her. Then he storms round the front of the cafe to confront Miss Laguerre, who turns towards him. He slaps her face so hard that she stumbles against the glass barrier of the cafe’s terrace.
He yells abuse at those who stand up from their tables as if ready to help her. Some men, including one who looks like a waiter, grab chairs but do nothing as the man continues to shout threats for some seconds before strolling off.
The incident occurred a week ago at 6.45pm near Buttes-Chaumont Park in the northern 19th arrondissement of Paris. Miss Laguerre said the attacker had ‘made dirty noises, commented and whistled’ as he passed. Of the slap, she told Le Parisien newspaper: ‘I knew he was coming to hit me. I refused to look down, I looked him right in the eyes, I was not going to apologise. I took the blow with the utmost pride just to show him that if he thought he could put me back in my place, it hadn’t worked. I was in pain, but didn’t realise it right away.’
Customers and staff have been criticised for appearing to do very little to help her but Miss Laguerre, a graduate of the INSA engineering institute in Rennes, said: ‘Everything happened very quickly and they did not have time to understand the situation.’
The video has been viewed more than a million times and has triggered a national debate about the way women are treated on the streets of France. Miss Laguerre said: ‘Some men think the street belongs to them and that we have no business being there.’ She wrote on her Facebook page: ‘This is not the only incident. Harassment is everyday.’ Prosecutors have launched an investigation as police hunt the attacker. France’s equalities minister Marlene Schiappa said she was ‘outraged but unfortunately not surprised’ by the incident. A French law due to come into effect this autumn will outlaw ‘annoying, following, and threatening a woman’.
‘I knew he was coming to hit me’