The scene outside a Paris cafe is as short as it is shocking in its almost casual violence. A young woman in a scarlet red dress passes a bearded man in a black T-shirt with his jacket slung over one shoulder. Both are walking briskly. The man says something to the woman. She turns her head and replies. Both continue walking. Then the man picks up an ashtray and throws it in the direction of the woman, who is by now off camera. A second later the man is striding purposefully towards her and she has returned into view. He approaches her and without warning hits 22-year-old architecture student Marie Laguerre with a blow so violent she stumbles and falls against the glass barrier of the cafe terrace. As shocked customers drinking coffee and beer jump to their feet to remonstrate with the attacker, one brandishing a chair, he appears to argue with them briefly before walking off. CCTV video of the attack on Laguerre, given to her by the cafe owner, has now gone viral after she posted it on Facebook. It has also bolstered the French government attempts to outlaw sexual harassment on the country’s streets and public transport. Laguerre was walking home around 6.45pm past a cafe close to Buttes-Chaumont park in the 19th arrondissement of north Paris, when she encountered her attacker. She said he “made dirty noises, comments and whistled” towards her as they passed. Instead of walking on, Laguerre decided to call him out, responding “Ta gueule!”, or shut up. “I didn’t even think he heard me,” she told the newspaper Le Parisien. “But he had heard me and suddenly things happened. He grabbed an ashtray and threw it at me. It missed my head by a few centimetres.” Laguerre shouted back at the man. “I felt hatred. I refused to be demeaned, it was humiliating.” The man walked back and as she stood facing him, hit her hard. The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an inquiry into the incident, but so far the attacker has not been identified. After the attack made the headlines, the French equalities minister, Marlène Schiappa, who persuaded the Assemblée Nationale to pass legislation in May introducing fines for sexual harassment on the street and public transport, said she was “outraged … but not surprised, unfortunately” by the assault. The bill, which outlaws “annoying, following and threatening” a woman as well as making sexist comments, is scheduled to be adopted in the next week. Fines come into effect in the autumn. “The political response must be strong and it is, because for the first time in France we will fine those responsible for street harassment,” Schiappa said. Laguerre told journalists she did not regret challenging the man verbally. She said she could have run off but she “wasn’t going to look down and certainly wasn’t going to apologise”. “I was so annoyed I didn’t want to hide, to look down. That he dared to be angry when it was me who had reason to be angry,” she said. “I turned to him and everything went extremely fast, but then I knew he was going to hit me. I was even ready to fight. When the blow came, I took it without showing any emotion. He continued to scream.” Posting the video on YouTube, Laguerre wrote in French: “This is unacceptable behaviour. It happens everyday. These men think they can do anything in the street, who think they are allowed to humiliate us and who don’t like it when we are offended. It’s unacceptable. “I am sick of feeling unsafe walking in the street. Things need to change, and they need to change now.” After some criticised the response of witnesses in the cafe, Laguerre added: “To all those who want to say the witnesses didn’t reacted well enough, everything happened very quickly and they didn’t have the time to understand the situation. The attacker was dangerous. After the aggression, I went back and the witnesses gave me great support. Please don’t lynch them.”<doc-sep>French prosecutors are investigating after a video went viral, showing a young woman being assaulted for confronting a man she accuses of sexual harassment, local media reported on Monday. Security camera footage shows 22-year-old student Marie Laguerre walking outside a Paris cafe in broad daylight. In a Facebook post, she said a man made lewd comments towards her — "not the first time it had happened to me that day." Read more: Spain's Pamplona launches app to stop sexual assaults at bull-running festival She said she told him to "shut up" before walking away. Footage provided by a cafe then shows the man grabbing an ashtray from the crowded cafe patio and throwing it at her. He then doubles back towards her. When Laguerre confronts him he strikes her across the face. Laguerre filed a complaint with police and later shared the video on social media, writing: "Because I responded to his harassment, a man hit me in the street, in the middle of the day, in front of dozens of witnesses. Unacceptable. Stop street harassment." The video was widely shared and it was picked up the Le Parisien newspaper on Monday with the front-page headline "Filmed proof." "What's at stake is serious: It's the freedom of women to move about in freedom in public," France's equality minister, Marlene Schiappa, told the paper. She said the government was hoping to push through a law later this year to punish sexual harassment in public spaces with on-the-spot fines, part of President Emmanuel Macron's pledge to combat sexism. Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.<doc-sep>French politicians have publicly supported a woman who was hit in the face by a man who she told to stop harassing her. CCTV footage showed the moment Marie Laguerre, 22, was attacked by a man on her way home from work in Paris. After he made a number of degrading comments and obscene noises as she walked past a cafe, Ms Laguerre told him to “shut up”. The man threw an ashtray at her head before they traded insults and he struck her with his hand across her face. The clip of the incident was shared online to help catch the culprit and garnered widespread attention, leading to an outpouring of support for Ms Laguerre. Recommended CCTV shows woman being slapped in the face “Total solidarity! Thank you Marie Laguerre for your courage! Stop harassment!” Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, said on Twitter. Marlène Schiappa, the French equalities minister, said she was outraged by the attack and urged that more should be done to prevent harassment of this nature. “It is not acceptable that in France, in 2018, women are hit in the street because they refuse to be insulted when they walk. It is a fundamental issue of liberty,” she said on Twitter. Ms Schiappa also said she was pushing the government to introduce on-the-spot fines for street harassment. She added that the new fining system should come into place by the autumn. When Ms Laguerre was attacked by the man, those in the cafe intervened and she briefly went home before going back to collect witness statements and complain to the police. 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Paris prosecutors opened an investigation Monday after a young woman was assaulted by a street harasser after telling him to stop – in full view of a terrace full of people and CCTV cameras in Paris's 19th arrondissement (district). Advertising Read more The Paris public prosecutor's office opened an investigation Monday after a young woman lodged a complaint against a man who harassed her in the street and then followed her, hitting her in the face after she told him to stop making obscene remarks. The victim obtained a CCTV video of the incident that has since gone viral on social media. The investigation involves sexual harassment and violence with a weapon since he also threw an ashtray at the victim, resulting in an injury that will cause her to miss some work, French media reported. Marie Laguerre, 22, posted footage of the incident on her Facebook page, describing how the man launched a series of "humiliating" comments coupled with whistles and explicit language as she was on her way home in northeastern Paris. Woman harassed then assaulted on a Paris street "So I let out a, "Shut up!" while making my way," she wrote. "Because I do not tolerate this type of behaviour. I cannot keep silent and we must not be silent." But "this man didn't like that", she continued, explaining that he first threw an ashtray at her before following her and then "hitting her in the face in the street, in broad daylight, in front of dozens of witnesses". Her Facebook post was accompanied by the video surveillance from the bar in front of which the incident took place. The video has so far been retweeted hundreds of times and the public video on Facebook has received hundreds of comments. She also tweeted about the incident, saying she was attacked only because she responded to this man's provocation. "Unacceptable. Stop street harassment," she wrote. Parce que j'ai répondu à son harcèlement, un homme m'a frappée en pleine rue, en pleine journée, devant des dizaines de témoins. Inadmissible. Stop au harcèlement de rue. #noustoutes #metoo #balancetonporc #harcelementderue @MarleneSchiappa https://t.co/lV9AIKndlX Marie Laguerre (@may_lgr) July 28, 2018 The French government announced in March that sexual harassment on French streets or in public transport would soon be punishable by an on-the-spot fine of €90. In announcing the measure, a government spokesman cited a 2016 survey that found 87 percent of women who use public transport had experienced harassment such as wolf whistles or comments on their appearance, intrusive staring or someone pressing up against them. Only 2 percent of these women went so far as to file a police complaint, although in more than 85 percent of cases at least one witness was present. Screen grab from Facebook page of Marie Laguerre Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning Subscribe