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CRIME

Journalist attacked after tense Ajaccio v Marseille match

Prosecutors in southern France opened an investigation on Sunday after a journalist was attacked following a match between Ajaccio and Marseille, the second incident of violence at a French match in as many days.

Published: 4 June 2023 13:21 CEST
Journalist attacked after tense Ajaccio v Marseille match
Marseille's supporters wave flags as they show their support for their team during the French L1 football match between AC Ajaccio and Olympique Marseille. Photo: Pascal POCHARD-CASABIANCA/AFP.

Ajaccio’s 1-0 win against their regional rivals on the island of Corsica was played in a tense atmosphere on Saturday.

After the game, a journalist from France 3 TV was attacked by Marseille supporters at a filling station near the stadium.

He was taken to hospital for treatment to “wounds on his face”, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

“Initial evidence points to serious acts of violence committed by a group of individuals who we are trying to identify,” Ajaccio’s chief prosecutor Nicolas Septe said.

He said the France 3 journalist was “quite seriously injured although there is no risk to his life”.

In a separate incident, a child suffering from cancer who was invited to meet the Marseille players was jostled along with his parents by Ajaccio supporters at the stadium, the Corsican club said, calling their behaviour “unspeakable”.

“The dream rapidly became a nightmare when Kenzo and his parents, who were wearing Marseille’s colours, were shamefully jostled by individuals who got into their box,” the club said.

“As soon as these individuals can be identified by our staff, we will bring prosecutions against them.”

The mayor of Ajaccio, Stephane Sbraggia, said the attacks on the journalist and the incidents surrounding the child “point to a worrying loss of values”.

It was the second incident of violence involving French football supporters in two days.

Four men were arrested in Bordeaux on Saturday after an assault on a player from their opponents Rodez led to a crucial match in the French second division promotion race being abandoned.

The match between hosts Bordeaux and Rodez on Friday was halted midway through the first half when a home fan approached the pitch and pushed over Rodez player Lucas Buades, who had just scored for the visiting team.

The match was halted and did not restart.

The source said the alleged aggressor was one of those taken into custody.

He was described as a 45-year-old man and a resident of the city of Annecy by local Bordeaux newspaper Sud Ouest.

Police allege that he invaded the pitch and “violently pushed” Buades, who was left concussed according to the referee.

The French league (LFP) will meet on Monday to discuss the incident which overshadowed the final night of the Ligue 2 season.

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CRIME

Suspects in Paris Holocaust memorial defacement fled abroad: prosecutors

French police have tracked three suspects in last week's defacement of the Paris Holocaust memorial across the border into Belgium, prosecutors said.

Published: 22 May 2024 16:32 CEST
Suspects in Paris Holocaust memorial defacement fled abroad: prosecutors

The suspects were caught on security footage as they moved through Paris before “departing for Belgium from the Bercy bus station” in southeast Paris, prosecutors said.

Investigators added that the suspects’ “reservations had been made from Bulgaria”.

An investigation was launched after the memorial was vandalised with anti-Semitic image on the anniversary of the first major round-up of French Jews under the Nazis in 1941.

On May 14, red hands were found daubed on the Wall of the Righteous at the Paris Holocaust memorial, which lists 3,900 people honoured for saving Jews during the Nazi occupation of France in World War Two.

Prosecutors are investigating damage to a protected historical building for national, ethnic, racial or religious motives.

Similar tags were found elsewhere in the Marais district of central Paris, historically a centre of French Jewish life.

The hands echoed imagery used earlier this month by students demonstrating for a ceasefire in Israel’s campaign against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Their discovery prompted a new wave of outrage over anti-Semitism.

“The Wall of the Righteous at the Shoah (Holocaust) Memorial was vandalised overnight,” Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a statement, calling it an “unspeakable act”.

It was “despicable” to target the Holocaust Memorial, Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, calling the act a, “hateful rallying cry against Jews”.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the act as one of “odious anti-Semitism”.

The vandalism “damages the memory” both of those who saved Jews in the Holocaust and the victims, he wrote on X.

“The (French) Republic, as always, will remain steadfast in the face of odious anti-Semitism,” he added.

Around 10 other spots, including schools and nurseries, around the historic Marais district home to many Jews were similarly tagged, central Paris district mayor Ariel Weil told AFP.

France has the largest Jewish population of any country outside Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

The country has been on high alert for anti-Semitic acts since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel and the state’s campaign of reprisals in Gaza in the months since.

In February, a French source told AFP that Paris’s internal security service believed Russia’s FSB security service was behind an October graffiti campaign tagging stars of David on Paris buildings.

A Moldovan couple was arrested in the case.

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