Nice-Matin has accused a Cagnes-sur-Mer municipal councilor of assaulting one of its journalists while she reported on a fire that had ravaged greenhouses on his family's property, in an incident the paper's deputy editor called "a fact of extreme gravity."
The journalist visited the Val de Cagne property on Wednesday, where she found burned luxury car wrecks beneath some of the damaged greenhouses, alongside a banner referencing garage activity on the site. According to Nice-Matin's account, Ugo Massi, an agricultural operator on the property and a municipal councilor within Cagnes-sur-Mer's ruling majority, confronted and pushed the journalist to the ground, then took her phone, after she and a local resident accompanying her were first confronted by the property's owner.
Nice-Matin's deputy editor Guilhem Ricavy condemned the incident in an editorial, saying the newsroom stood fully behind the journalist and could not condone what had happened. Cagnes-sur-Mer's Rassemblement National mayor, Bryan Masson, urged calm pending the outcome of a police investigation, telling AFP he had "no objective information" on what occurred, and noting the alleged incident took place in the context of Massi's professional activity on the family farm rather than his role as an elected official. "Freedom of the press is a fundamental liberty," Masson said. "The presumption of innocence is equally so." The Alpes-Maritimes branch of the French Communist Party condemned the incident separately.