Towards a radicalization of the demonstrators against the vaccine pass?
If the mobilization was down sharply this Saturday, with 54,000 people gathered in France, according to the Ministry of the Interior, incidents were recorded in Paris.
A team from Agence France-Presse was threatened with death and assaulted and one of the security guards protecting it was injured in the head during a rally organized by Florian Philippot's Les Patriotes movement.
The team, made up of two image reporter journalists (JRI), was accompanied by two security agents to cover the rally from Place du Trocadéro, in the west of Paris.
After the first shots were taken without incident, the situation became tense after the departure of the procession at the Palais de Tokyo, when around 150 individuals, identified as far-right by journalists, arrived near the team.
A hooded individual with a megaphone said: "It's AFP, fuck these sons of bitches," says the attacked journalist.
At this call, at least fifty people went to the videographer to do battle with her.
The protection agents intervened, allowing the two JRIs to flee.
"Look at me, I'm going to kill you"
The security guards were then beaten, in particular with truncheons, while they were protecting the videographer, overtaken by about twenty demonstrators.
Guards and reporters report receiving death threats before one of the security guards was hit in the head with a bottle, splitting his scalp open.
The latter and the two journalists finally managed to take shelter behind a mobile gendarmerie cordon and stopped covering the gathering.
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“In six years of demonstrations, this is the first time that I have experienced such violence,” testified the journalist, shocked, in particular by the death threats. “The hooded man at the origin of the movement grabbed me and said to me:
I am going to kill you, look at me carefully, I am going to kill you
”, she says. “If she had fallen, she would have been beaten up,” adds her fellow videographer.
"The AFP vigorously protests against this intolerable aggression and the desire of some to prevent its journalists from doing their job," said Phil Chetwynd, director of information for the news agency, which is studying "the possibility of prosecute such unconscionable acts”.
This is the second attack on an AFP team covering protests against the health pass.
In July 2021, two JRIs received spitting and insults during a rally organized by Florian Philippot.
