French politicians have raised their voice in support of a woman who was hit by a man on the street after she resisted his attempts to harass her, The Guardian wrote.
In a CCTV footage of the incident posted online, 22-year-old architecture student Marie Laguerre is seen walking by a café in Paris.
According to Laguerre, the man made “dirty noises, comments and whistled,” only to be told to shut up by her.
“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,” Laguerre said.
The video then shows the man turning and throwing an ashtray at Laguerre. Walking up, he strikes the woman on the head, sending her falling down on the glass barrier separating the café’s terrace from then street.
The surveillance footage Laguerre later posted on her Facebook page went viral in an instant, having been viewed over one million times, shared more than 5.6 thousand times and received over 1.5 thousand comments calling the incident “unacceptable,” “revolting” and “intolerable behavior.”
“Total solidarity! Thank you Marie Laguerre for your courage! Stop harassment!” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote on her Twitter account.
Solidarité totale! Merci Marie Laguerre pour votre courage! Stop au harcèlement! https://t.co/7Tkd74mEUB
— Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) 30 июля 2018 г.
Other French politicians equally rallied in support of Laguerre, with Equalities Minister Marlene Schiappa tweeting that “it is not acceptable that in France, in 2018, women are hit in the street because they refuse to be insulted when they walk. It is a fundamental issue of liberty.”
Politicians shared these posts using various hashtags, among them #BalanceTonPorc, or “rat on your pig”, the French version of #MeToo.
Many women living in France have used the same hashtag to share Marie Laguerre’s story online, with many saying that her experience was all too common in the country.
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Police are investigating the incident, but so far the attacker has not been identified.
A bill, which is expected to be passed by the end of the week, would forbid “annoying, following, threatening a woman,” and offenders will start receiving fines this autumn.
