By Antony Paone
PARIS (Reuters) -A Parisian shop-owner who helped prevent a masked gang from kidnapping the daughter of a French crypto businessman has been hailed as a hero after he rushed at the attackers with a fire extinguisher.
French prosecutors are investigating after a gang on Tuesday attempted to kidnap a woman identified by the local press as the daughter of a crypto boss. The brazen attempted kidnapping on the streets of Paris is at least the third attack against French crypto industry players in recent months, underlining growing threats to the industry’s wealthy entrepreneurs.
Video widely shared on social media shows three masked men wrestling with two people on the ground – the woman and her husband – while a van waits nearby. A man can then be seen rushing towards the attackers with a fire extinguisher, before they escape into the back of a getaway van. The man then throws the extinguisher at the departing vehicle.
Passersby on Wednesday cheered the man – who gave his name only as Nabil – as he spoke to Reuters outside his bicycle shop in Paris’ 11th arrondissement.
“You’re a champion,” one woman said, while another man called out to him from across the street.
“Thank you very much. That’s kind,” Nabil replied.
Nabil said he knew the couple from the neighbourhood and was full of praise for the woman’s husband.
He “took a lot of blows to the head and he didn’t let go of his wife,” Nabil said. “And so they must have thought, ‘It’s going to be very difficult to get her.’ I think that’s what made them give up, more than the fire extinguisher.”
Nabil said he grabbed the fire extinguisher in a panic, hoping to put an end to the attack.
“I rushed over with that object, not knowing exactly what I was going to do with it. But I feel like it ended the altercation. So I achieved my goal,” he said.
(Writing by Elizabeth HowcroftEditing by Gareth Jones)
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