"Currently, a person, minor, is in custody as part of the investigation for violence in assembly" on the journalist of M6 Jérôme Régali, said in an email to AFP the prosecutor of Nimes, Cécile Gensac, without giving more details.
He is a young man from the Pissevin district, 17 years old and already known to the authorities. He was arrested Tuesday around 14:00 by the Anti-Crime Brigade (BAC) of Nimes, said a source close to the investigation who requested anonymity.
Barely arrived Tuesday morning in Pissevin, with the many towers and bars of buildings and part of the device of the neighborhoods of "republican reconquest", the journalist image reporter (JRI) based in Montpellier had been hit "standing and on the ground" by two men, who fled, according to a police source.
The day before, the mayor of Nîmes, Jean-Paul Fournier, had taken the decision to close until further notice the municipal media library of Pissevin because of the aggravation of violence against the 18 members of his staff and the inhabitants of this impoverished neighborhood.
Mr. Fournier had denounced in particular the establishment of "barricades" and "checkpoints" in the neighborhood, and the fact that the agents of the media library are subjected to "pat-downs in the street before accessing their workstation".
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, the M6 group and the Press Club of Occitanie condemned this attack.
The prosecutor of Nîmes announced the opening of a "preliminary investigation" into the facts concerning the media library and an "investigation of flagrance" for those concerning the journalist.
Mr. Darmanin promised the sending of reinforcement of a company of CRS while the prefect of Gard, Marie-Françoise Lecaillon, announces an "intensification" of the police presence and "an increase in power in the perspective of the upcoming reopening of the media library".
© 2023 AFP