Lille (AFP)

A man was taken into police custody on Friday as part of the investigation after the assault of a photojournalist from the Union newspaper on Saturday, two days after the main suspect was indicted, the prosecution said .

The man who presented himself at the Reims police station at the end of the afternoon was taken into custody for "participating in an armed group with a view to committing violence or degradation" and "failure to assist anyone in the process. danger, "said the public prosecutor in Reims, Matthieu Bourrette, in a statement.

On Wednesday, a 21-year-old young man of Algerian nationality, already convicted eight times in 2018 and 2019, was indicted for "aggravated attempted murder" and placed in pre-trial detention.

He is suspected of being the one who "struck" the head, "first with the fists, then with the camera" of the journalist, especially when he was on the ground, while the latter "was exercising his job, and for this reason, "in the sensitive area of ​​the Red Cross, explained Mr. Bourrette.

Coming to cover the apparent preparations for a fight, the photographer was taken to task by a group of 13 individuals, while he was near his car flocked with the logo of the newspaper.

Christophe Lantenois, 65, remained on Friday in a "very worrying state, still in an artificial coma," the editor of the regional daily, Geraldine Baehr-Pastor, told AFP.

© 2021 AFP