The wife of a French bus driver who was beaten to death after he asked four passengers to wear face masks on board his vehicle on Saturday called for “exemplary punishment” for his killers.
The assault on Philippe Monguillot has scandalized France. President Emmanuel Macron sent the interior minister to meet the driver’s widow on Saturday after his death was announced on Friday. He had been hospitalized in critical condition after the July 5 attack.
Bob Edme / AP
Veronique Monguillot said she told the minister, Gerald Darmanin, that she and her three daughters were “destroyed” by the attack on her husband at a bus stop in Bayonne, southwest France.
“We must hit the fist on the table, so this will never happen again,” he said. “It is barbaric, it is not normal. We must stop this massacre.”
The Bayonne prosecutor said Monguillot was assaulted after he asked four passengers on his No. 810 bus to wear face masks, which are required on board French public transport due to the coronavirus pandemic. The driver was insulted, got off the bus and violently beaten and kicked in the head, the prosecutor said.
Four people are detained.
“This bus driver was just doing his job,” said Darmanin. “He left his house in the morning and did not return, leaving a widow and three orphaned girls. It is an absolutely hateful act.”
France has struggled to tame its coronavirus outbreak, which saw more than 208,000 confirmed infections and more than 30,000 virus-related deaths, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the actual number is higher, due to limitations of the evidence and minor cases lost.
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