French rapper arrested after kicking his dog in video

French rapper Timal was arrested east of Paris on Wednesday after posting a video to Snapchat showing him kicking a dog, police and prosecutors told AFP.

Published: 1 September 2022 15:05 CEST

French rapper arrested after kicking his dog in video

Photo by BERTRAND GUAY / AFP

The clip showed the 25-year-old musician, real name Ruben Louis, kicking one of his two dogs three times around the head, and bore the caption “you moron”.

Timal was arrested on Wednesday morning in Champs-sur-Marne and his two dogs confiscated, prosecutors in nearby Meaux said, adding that he faced charges of “cruelty towards a domestic animal”.

Several animal rights groups, including France’s oldest, the Society for the Protection of Animals (SPA) said they had filed complaints.

The latest high-profile animal cruelty case comes after French footballer Kurt Zouma was in June sentenced to 180 hours’ community service by a British court for abusing his cat, which also came to light in a viral video.

Timal first broke through in February this year with Filtre (Filter), recorded alongside fellow rapper Gazo and which was number one in the charts for a week in March.

The song has been played more than 52 million times on the world’s top music streaming service Spotify, and almost the same number of times on YouTube.

Five days ago, Timal released a new single, Cameleon alongside veteran rapper Booba.

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Police intervened as dozens of students gathered on a central Paris campus of the prestigious Sciences Po university on Wednesday evening, management said.

“After discussions with management, most of them agreed to leave the premises,” university officials said in a statement to AFP, saying the protest was adding to “tensions” at the university.

But “a small group of students” refused to leave and “it was decided that the police would evacuate the site,” the statement added.

Sciences Po said it regretted that “numerous attempts” to have the students leave the premises peacefully had led nowhere.

According to the police préfecture, students had set up around 10 tents.

When members of law enforcement arrived, “50 students left on their own, 70 were evacuated calmly from 0.20am” and the police “left at 1.30am, with no incidents to report,” the police said.

The protesters demanded that Sciences Po “cut its ties with universities and companies that are complicit in the genocide in Gaza” and “end the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campus,” according to witnesses.

The protest was organised by the Palestine Committee of Sciences Po.

In a statement on Thursday, the group said its activists had been “carried out of the school by more than fifty members of the security forces,” adding that “around a hundred” police officers were “also waiting for them outside”.

Sciences Po management “stubbornly refuses to engage in genuine dialogue,” the group said.

The organisers have called for “a clear condemnation of Israel’s actions by Sciences Po” and a commemorative event “in memory of the innocent people killed by Israel,” among other demands.

Separately, the Student Union of Sciences Po Paris said the decision by university officials to call in the police was “both shocking and deeply worrying” and reflected “an unprecedented authoritarian turn”.

Many top US universities have been rocked by protests in recent weeks, with some students furious over the Israel-Hamas war and ensuing humanitarian crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza.

France is home to the world’s largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s biggest Muslim community.

The war in Gaza began with an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on October 7th that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

In retaliation, Israel launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,305 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.