‘Yellow vest’ boxer sought after punching French policeman

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

The shocking images, taken over the weekend, show the heavily built man landing 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,” a tweet from France’s SCPN police union said.

“For a boxer, apparently you don’t respect any of the rules. You are going to learn those of the criminal code.”

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 condemned 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,” Trompesauce told RMC radio yesterday. “There was a woman who was attacked by CRS (riot police).”

Attacking and injuring a cop in France can lead to up to three years in prison and a fine of ¤45,000 (RM212,000), though sentences can be increased in certain circumstances.

Around 50,000 protesters took to the streets again last weekend in cities around France to protest the centrist government of President Emmanuel Macron, leading to clashes in Paris and Bordeaux.

Several men driving a forklift truck also smashed open the doors of the ministry of government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux in Paris, who denounced the break-in as an “unacceptable attack on the Republic”.

Protests against fuel taxes began in November, but then mushroomed into a wider revolt last month against the policies and governing style of Macron. — AFP