Video Of Cat-Caller’s Brazen Attack On Young Woman Sparks Outcry In France

CCTV footage of a 22-year-old woman being hit in the face after remonstrating a cat-caller in Paris has gone viral in France, as the nation’s parliament prepares to pass a bill enforcing new on-the-spot fines for sexual harassers.

In a Facebook post, student Marie Laguerre said she was walking past a bar in the city’s 19th arrondissement last Tuesday when a man insulted her and made sexually suggestive noises.

“It wasn’t the first time – that day, that week, or that month, it had been building up,” she later told a French TV station.

“I got angry and said ‘shut up’. I didn’t think he’d hear, but he did.”

Video of the aftermath shows Laguerre walking away from the man, before he picks an ashtray off a nearby table and hurls it in her direction. He then strides up to Laguerre and strikes her in the head.

Several other patrons confront the man while Laguerre keeps her distance. Both Laguerre and the attacker can be seen walking away in opposite directions after the incident.

Laguerre said she went home immediately after the attack but quickly returned to the cafe to speak to supportive witnesses and to file a formal police complaint. The owner of the venue provided her the CCTV footage to assist in locating the attacker.

Parisian prosecutors have launched an investigation but are yet to identify the man.

At time of writing, the video has been viewed on Facebook more than 1.4 million times. It has sparked a new wave of public outcry against the kind of casual and public sexual harassment women experience on a regular basis.

Laguerre’s video comes as the Assemblée Nationale prepares to pass a new bill proposed by French equalities minister Marlène Schiappa in May, which calls for the outlawing of “annoying, following and threatening” women in public, and for fines to go along with those offences.

Schiappa said she was “outraged… but not surprised” by the incident, and said the official government response to harassment “must be strong”. 

“These men who think they’re all allowed on the street, who can humiliate us and don’t stand to be offended, that’s unacceptable,” Laguerre wrote on Facebook.

“It’s time for this kind of behaviour to stop.”


If you would like to talk to a counsellor about rape, sexual assault or domestic violence, give the people over at 1800 RESPECT a call on 1800 737 732.

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