The 66-year-old Calmy-Rey was approached on the street by her assailant after attending the opening of the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights.

In a video posted on YouTube, the attacker appears to confront Calmy-Rey with allegations of human rights breaches in a case involving the Banque Cantonale de Genève (BCGE).

According to the video’s subtitles, the attacker says:

“Mrs. Calmy-Rey, my name is Eric Dougoud. You have just given a talk at the Film Festival on Human Rights. Yet in the BCGE case, you violated nine of the 30 articles in the European Convention on Human Rights.”

Calmy-Rey replies: “Me? I have not violated anything at all”.

“Oh, really?” the man replies, before forcefully shoving what appears to be a creamy cake into the politician’s face.

Several bystanders then intervene to keep the man away from the Social Democratic politician, who twice served as Switzerland’s president, in 2007 and 2011.

On his website, the presumed attacker details a conspiracy theory claiming that the BCGE bank had been infiltrated by groups including the Freemasons and Opus Dei.

In the 1990s, a number of the bank’s managers and accountants faced the Geneva courts over billion-franc losses on property deals, newspaper Blick reports.

Micheline Calmy-Rey headed the Geneva finance department from 1998. She was elected to the Federal Council four years later.

Newspaper Le Matin spoke about the attack with a number of politicians, none of whom found it amusing.

“This is not funny. One can clearly see that this is a violent punch in the face and not a jolly caking,” said Green Party president Ueli Leuenberger.  

Calmy-Rey does not intend to press charges, film festival chief Léo Kaneman told newspaper La Tribune de Genève.