Fatima Saidi may remember her first trip to France for a long time, and not for the best reasons. The 22-year-old Moroccan influencer, who lives in Madrid, claims to have been the target of spit on by a jogger while she was walking near the Eiffel Tower with a friend last Tuesday.
A jogger “literally spat on us while we were choosing a restaurant for lunch,” she says on Instagram. “He kept running and gave us the finger. His attitude was hostile and he looked at us badly,” she also testifies in The Parisian.
“Shocked”, the young woman says she ran after the man to confront him, her phone camera on. In the video that she then published as a story, we see a man with graying hair spit in her direction again and give her the middle finger before running away.
“Two sides of the same coin”
Fatima then said she went to the Paris Center police station to file a complaint, specifying that she had “voluntarily spat on her because she was wearing a hijab”. “For me, it’s both racism and machismo,” she denounces to the Parisian. “I don’t see a difference between being harassed for being covered up and being harassed and slut shamed for showing skin. They are two sides of the same coin,” she explains on Instagram.
“People like him must face the consequences of their actions,” she still proclaims. He knew we were two helpless girls, so he used his white male privilege against us. He knew nothing bad would happen to him. »
Our file on violence against women
On Friday, Emmanuel Grégoire, the first deputy at Paris City Hall, condemned “this gesture, which represents both an attack against the Muslim religion and against women”. He also supported the two young women in their approach to the police, recalling that the City had made the fight against discrimination “a priority”.