France shocked by video of woman being slapped by harasser

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Radio New Zealand

2:08 pm today

A French student has spoken out after she was harassed by a man in a Paris street and then hit in the face when she told him to stop.

Marie Laguerre shared CCTV video of the man slapping her outside a cafe in the north-east of the capital.

. . .

Ms Laguerre, 22, had been returning home last Tuesday in the 19th district of Paris when a man started making obscene and degrading comments and "noises with sexual connotations", she explained in an interview with French radio on Monday.

"It wasn't the first time - that day, that week, or that month. It had been building up. I got angry and said 'shut up'. I didn't think he'd hear, but he did," she told French TV.



Read more: https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/363032/france-shocked-by-video-of-woman-being-slapped-by-harasser

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YouTube video:

[Judi Lynn]

1. Viral Video of a Man Slapping a Woman in Public Sparked Outrage Across France

Viral Video of a Man Slapping a Woman in Public Sparked Outrage Across France

By CASEY QUACKENBUSH 11:11 PM EDT

A viral video capturing a shocking scene of violent harassment outside of a Paris cafe has sparked outrage across France, the Guardian reports.

CCTV footage appears to show 22-year-old Marie Laguerre in a red dress crossing paths with a bearded man in a black T-shirt outside of a cafe. He says something to her, and she turns her head and replies. Both continue walking in opposite directions.

A few seconds later, the man picks up an ashtray from an empty table at the cafe and hurls it in her direction. She is no longer in view.

The man then walks back towards the woman, who moves back into the frame, and strikes her across the face so hard she loses her footing and hits the glass fencing around the cafe terrace.

More:
http://time.com/5353530/france-cafe-harassment-video/

[Judi Lynn]

2. Uproar in France over video of woman hit by harasser in Paris street

Video of attack on Marie Laguerre after she responded to sexual harassment goes viral

Kim Willsher in Paris
Mon 30 Jul 2018 12.39 EDT

The scene outside a Paris cafe is as short as is it shocking in its almost casual violence.

A young woman in a scarlet red dress passes a bearded man in a black T-shirt with his jacket slung over one shoulder. Both are walking briskly. The man says something to the woman. She turns her head and replies. Both continue walking.

Then the man picks up an ashtray and throws it in the direction of the woman, who is by now off camera. A second later the man is striding purposefully towards her and she has returned into view.

He approaches her and without warning hits 22-year-old architecture student Marie Laguerre with a blow so violent she stumbles and falls against the glass barrier of the cafe terrace.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/30/uproar-in-france-over-video-of-woman-marie-laguerre-hit-by-harasser-in-paris-street

[Judi Lynn]

3. What would one of these dipsticks do if their target simply fed the same nonsense back to them,

made ridiculous mouth sounds, or yammered pathetic sexual comments, leered, gaped, gawked, smirked, etc. in their direction? It's as if every day is a birthday for these bullies!

Most likely they wouldn't be prepared for it, after being so satisfied with bothering strangers on the street who remain strangers, instead of holding them accountable.

[braddy]

4. Did you notice the men leap up for battle to defend her?

[Judi Lynn]

7. Had to go back to see it repeatedly. They were far from complacent, for sure.

Even some people out in the street were watching very closely.

If she had decided to press charges there's no doubt she would have had a bunch of witnesses coming forward.

I hope their concern will come through to her in the time ahead as she sees the people around did care about what happened.

[braddy]

8. The men instantly leap into action and danger, and risk of violence to protect that woman.

[markses66]

20. LET US NOW PRAISE THE MEN

[Squinch]

23. Right? Weird.

[braddy]

31. I praise them for protecting her.

[markses66]

57. Mmmmhmmm

[braddy]

58. He came back.

[braddy]

9. The men fought for her and defended her, they were warriors.

[Squinch]

11. What? They talked to the guy and then he walked away. They were nice about it, but

at no point was any of them in danger. What makes them warriors?

[LisaL]

13. I am not sure what would you have them do?

Wack him with a chair? France doesn't have "stand your ground law" so anybody who attacked the guy could be facing charges themselves.

[Squinch]

17. I wouldn't have them do anything other than what they did. They did the right thing, the thing

that decent people would do. My question is: what part of talking to the guy till he went away made them "warriors" and which part of talking to the guy constituted them facing danger and the "risk of violence" as the poster suggested.

[braddy]

32. They protected her, and of course they did it by facing the attacker's wrath, I assume the women

consoled her after the men removed the physical threat.

[Squinch]

39. I'm sorry, but this breathless comic book interpretation of the encounter is just bizarre.

[braddy]

42. Jumping up and getting in a strangers face during his street beating is not to be taken lightly,

that is why one grabbed a weapon, he knew that this could be dangerous and may even involve a knife. The numbers amassed seemed to prevent a one on one fight with the males.

I don't understand the lack of gratitude for strangers leaping up to help, at risk to themselves, is it because they are males?

[Squinch]

43. LOL! "Is it because they are males?" OK. Now I get what the game is. And the escalating

bodice-ripper imaginings really are simply bizarre.

[braddy]

44. I don't understand why the helpful and brave citizens are denigrated, they should be praised.

[Squinch]

45. I did praise them. I see no reason to deify them. But you live

happily ever after, you hear?

[braddy]

46. I pointed out their actions and it made people angry for some reason, the victim also praised them.

[Squinch]

47. Three men and one woman went over to the man and talked to him until he went away. That was

very decent of all of them. They did what decent people would do in the situation.

But you have somehow turned that into male "warriors" "leaping up for battle to defend her," fighting for her, "facing the attacker's wrath," and braving untold dangers to do it while the womenfolk gathered around the victim and consoled her. Also, somehow in your telling, the man was probably armed with a knife and this was a street fight and a "street beating."

None of that happened. People aren't angry. They are perplexed by why you are describing events that simply didn't happen.

[braddy]

49. You saw one man grab a weapon and ready to fight, the victim says the attacker was dangerous.

Having frequently been the street fighting defender, including against knives, I admire the men for their courage. "The attacker was dangerous. After the attack, I came back and the witnesses were very supportive, please don't lynch them."

[Squinch]

50. Oh, FFS. Bye now.

[markses66]

19. The woman in the purple shirt (sitting with the man in the white oxford) also walks over

How you managed to turn this into some subthread praising men is beyond me, but I guess we all have our ideological axes to grind.

[braddy]

34. How can one denigrate the protectors? They deserve praise.

[LanternWaste]

36. Who is denigrating them? You'll point that out for us, yes?

Or is it simply make-believe on your part?

[braddy]

41. Watch the video, don't be angry at me for pointing out that the men rose up to protect her.

[yardwork]

66. This is unintentionally hilarious, you know.

[braddy]

67. I'm sure the victim felt better when her attacker was confronted and driven away by them.

[yardwork]

68. I'm sure that she appreciated the support.

[braddy]

69. And the muscle to end it, especially from the one who armed himself.

[markses66]

55. Slow day on Professor Peterson's YouTube channel, I guess?

Good Lord.

[braddy]

59. I have no idea what that means.

[LanternWaste]

33. I'm not surprised at all you praise men so highly.

Even though they did little, and risked less.

[braddy]

40. Easy to say if you haven't been in many physical street fights with strangers, to protect someone.

[Kotya]

27. No. What part was that?

I saw a man physically assault a young woman in public and then walk away without being stopped by anyone. As far as I can tell, he got away with it.

[braddy]

35. They ended the threat, they did not deliver sentence.

[braddy]

37. Watch the video, he returned.

[LisaL]

60. If they tried to stop him, likely they'd be the ones arrested.

Like already has been pointed out, France is not big on self-defense laws.

[area51]

5. "What would one of these dipsticks do..."

You reminded me of this "Wednesday Addams" video.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Wonderful! Could not be more appropriate! Thank you, area51.

[2naSalit]

12. Love it!

[byronius]

26. +1000

[alphafemale]

63. This is Perfect.

[GoCubsGo]

64. This is one of the times where I wish we could rec the individual comments here.

[NutmegYankee]

10. Glad to see several men jumped up to confront the attacker.

One of whom weaponized a chair.

[get the red out]

14. Absolutely

[dalton99a]

22. +1

[LittleGirl]

15. I wonder if they have citizen's arrest in France.

This video is really upsetting and the force of hitting her is amazing considering they were strangers. WTF?
I would have tackled the guy and held him down until the police got there (with help from those wonderful men that jumped up).

My name is little girl because I'm short.

[DFW]

18. In France? Are you kidding?

I'm there once a week for work. Once, a friend of mine had a shop downtown. He bought and sold old coins and jewelry. His wife was Serbian, and a Bulgarian (the languages are similar) had started hanging around with them, and gained their confidence. He was eventually allowed into the security area. One day, when my friend's wife was out, the Bulgarian was in the security area, pulled out a hammer and bashed my friend over the head with it (he was 70 at the time). Blood streaming down his head, he managed to get the hammer away from his assailant and subdued him until the cops could arrive. The first thing they did was charge my friend with assault and battery for defending himself. Justice in Europe is a little screwed up in many cases.

[LittleGirl]

21. Oh man

DFW, that's awful about your friend. I can't believe he was charged with assault and battery and not the guy that instigated it. Yikes. That's messed up.
Is he okay now? 70 yrs old is an old age to be clobbered like that, ouch.

[DFW]

29. He lived another eight years

He developed Alzheimer's maybe a year later, went downhill gradually, had to close his business soon after diagnosis. He was a tough old guy, had an Arab name, called himself a "Pied-Noir." Literally translated, that means "black foot," but it was just French slang referring to African-born (later on, just Algerian-born) French citizens in France's African colonies. He passed away at age 78, but had to close his business within a year of the assault. Whether or not the Alzheimer's was going to break out anyway, or if the beating accelerated it, no one can say now.

The right to self-defense is extremely limited in much of western Europe, Germany included. In the "old" days, when it was nearly impossible to acquire a firearm as a private citizen, less of a stink was made about it. These days, however, organized gangs come in from Eastern Europe, often armed to the teeth with guns brought over the open borders. One group of professional burglars from Serbia was famous for killing anyone they found in houses or apartments they broke into so as not to leave any witnesses. They were only caught when they left a victim alive by mistake, and the victim recovered to be able to identify them.

A friend of ours worked for the German version of the FBI before he retired. He eventually transferred to the "safer" forensics division, although that was gruesome at times, too. When Islamic extremists set off a bomb at a disco in Bali, he was sent there to help identify the remains of the German citizens thought to be among the dead. He said it was one of the worst jobs he had even been sent to do. From the way he described that job, I got the impression he would have preferred to be sent back to shootouts with Serbian gangsters.

[Snellius]

24. Some of the worst types in European cities come from within the EU

The xenophobes complain about foreign immigrants but many of the pickpockets, street scammers, harassers, thieves, etc., especially in the tourist-rich capitals, come from within Europe, especially Eastern Europeans, and it's been going on for a long time.

[DFW]

30. EU membership was a godsend for some eastern European countries

Especially after Schengen membership, they could send off their excess bad guys westward. I had one awkward moment with a member of the Romanian government, who was complaining to me (even though I'm not an EU citizen) that the EU couldn't really decide if they wanted Romania or not. I wasn't in a position where I could speak freely, but what I wanted to say, was, "well, if the people your country sent westward were more like you and less like the people sitting in your jails, the EU would welcome you with open arms."

As it is, letting Romania into the EU and Schengen was a cynical move undertaken to provide cheap labor to a few large companies in the west and misery to everyone else. Nokia, the big maker of portable phones, closed a factory near me in Germany, and put 4000 workers on unemployment. They were going to relocate their factory n Romania, where labor cost less than half what it cost in Germany. Unfortunately for Nokia, the quality of the work done by their new cheap labor in Romania was so poor (I think Nokia forgot that you still have to train your factory workers, even if they are cheaper than the old ones) that they had to close the factory there, and ended up re-locating to China, which, of course, they could have done in the first place.

[Snellius]

48. The Balkan countries have always been a thorn in the side of Europe

Your story is very interesting. I'm a European historian and all you can say is that the history and character of these countries is so complicated and infamous it's almost impossible to understand. Like in the rest of Eastern Europe, most of the better elements were wiped out in the war, leaving some of the worst.

They have a terrible reputation in Europe even before WWI, where the war began in Sarajevo, and all through the Nazi period, with whom they were often allied or sympathetic. Unfortunately, the old power structures, ethnic rivalries, and peasant backwardness were not destroyed after WWII, as they were in Germany. Milosevic, Kosovo, "ethnic cleansing", etc. So it's surprising they were accepted into the EU, especially since the rest of Europe, desperately short of labor after the war, was more concerned with exploiting them than helping them.

[Squinch]

51. Can you suggest any books that give a basic overview of the history of the region?

[Snellius]

52. Short answer is no.

I wish there were. Literally, most European historians, especially in US, don't want to touch it. There are so many cultures, languages and shifting alliances that are involved and boundaries that get moved around every couple of years, pulled back and forth between Germany, Italy, Austria, and Russia. It goes back to the weird crazy quilt of ethnic groups held together by the Holy Roman (Austrian) Empire for centuries, which when it collapsed after WWI, went completely to hell.

Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August about the inception of WWI is a great book and a good start.
This looks useful: https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/18/books/a-reader-s-guide-to-the-balkans.html
Good intro history, short: The Balkans by Mark Mazower

Good luck.

[Squinch]

53. I love Tuchman! Thank you. I'll read these two and then use the times source. Thanks.

[LisaL]

61. Seems like it's screwed up a whole lot more than just a little, if the guy defending

himself from an attacker ends up arrested.

[DFW]

65. Bienvenu en France n/t

[marble falls]

16. I'm speechless. And more determined than ever not to vote for any candidate who looks like me.

#BalanceTonPork. I am not sitting quietly if I ever see something like this.

[heaven05]

25. he needs

to have been beaten into the ground. 🤬

[Judi Lynn]

28. Who is Marie Laguerre, what happened in the Paris slap video and what has she said about sexual hara

DON'T BACK DOWN
Who is Marie Laguerre, what happened in the Paris slap video and what has she said about sexual harassment?
The French student was punched by a man after she told him to shut up following sexual comments and suggestions were allegedly made by the man

By Jon Rogers
30th July 2018, 4:52 pmUpdated: 30th July 2018, 4:53 pm

CCTV footage has emerged of a French woman being physically attacked outside a café in Paris in broad daylight.

It is claimed the man made obscene and degrading comments to her before she told him to “shut up”.


FACEBOOK/MARIE LAGUERRE
3
Marie Leguerre has spoken out about sexual harassment on the streets
Who is Marie Laguerre?
A 22-year-old French student.

She was harassed and leered at in Paris and when she confronted him he hit her.

Marie shared the CCTV footage of the man slapping her outside a café in the north-east of the capital.

The incident comes as France is set to introduce a package of measures aimed at stamping out street harassment.

The range of fines are likely to come into effect next week.

What happened in the Paris slap video?
Marie had been returning home from work on July 24 in the 19th district of Paris when a man started making obscene and degrading comments and “noises with sexual connotations,” she told French radio.

More:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6899079/marie-laguerre-sexual-harassment-paris-slap-video/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/marie.laguerre

[Judi Lynn]

38. 'Solidarity!' French politicians praise woman who stood up to harasser

'Solidarity!' French politicians praise woman who stood up to harasser
Marie Laguerre was punched by a man who she told to shut up after he whistled at her in the street

Kate Lyons
Tue 31 Jul 2018 01.34 EDT

French politicians have rallied in support of a woman who was hit by a man when she stood up to him after he harassed her in the street, calling the attack “unacceptable”, “revolting” and “intolerable behaviour”.

“Total solidarity! Thank you Marie Laguerre for your courage! Stop harassment!” Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, wrote in response to a tweet by the victim of the attack, 22-year-old architecture student Marie Laguerre.

CCTV footage of the event, shared online by Laguerre, shows her walking near a cafe in Paris when a man says something to her. There is no audio of the interaction, but Laguerre alleges he made “dirty noises, comments and whistled”, to which she responded by saying “Ta gueule!” or “Shut up”.

After they parted, the video shows the man turning and throwing an ashtray at Laguerre, which narrowly misses her. He then walks purposefully toward her and hits her in the head so that she stumbles and falls against the glass barrier of a cafe terrace.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/31/french-politicians-praise-paris-woman-sexual-harassment-marie-laguerre

[robbob]

54. Interesting French sidebar:

La bouche means mouth in French, whereas gueule refers to an animals mouth (maybe like snout?), so “Ferme ta bouche” means shut your mouth, while the more emphatic “Ferme ta gueule” literally means shut your animal (pig?) mouth.

French; it’s like they have a different word for everything! (And sometimes 2 different words!)

[Judi Lynn]

56. Never would have known! Very interesting. It appears the word choice displeased him! Thanks. n/t

[robbob]

62. I don't think it could have been used more appropriately

...since he was acting like a pig...

[DFW]

70. French slang is incredibly extensive

Try this:
J'avais laissé mon bouquin dans la bagnole avant de bouffer.
Trouble with the vocabulary? Try this:
J'avais laissé mon livre dans la voiture avant de manger.

Learning only standard French only lets you in in half the language.

[robbob]

71. My Franco/Ontarien uncle once asked me to

“Fetch-moi un bierre dans la fridge”

Wow! I thought, I know French!

Fr’Anglais they call it.

Le hot dog.
Une hamburg.

[DFW]

72. French in Canada is a different animal altogether

I was sitting next to some Québécois once on a flight from Havana to Montréal. When I heard the French, I said something to them in French. They immediately informed me that they would understand everything I would say, and that I would understand next to nothing they said. They were 90% right, and my French is more than adequate. When their ambassador to France (a friend of mine, who was from Montréal) gave his two farewell parties when his time there was done, he gave one one for Anglos and one for French speakers. I was the ONLY Anglo invited to the French-speaking party. The only reason I understood the Canadians present is because they had all been forced to learn to speak European French to be able to deal with the French government. When they spoke among themselves, it might as well have been Algonquin for all I understood.