Road rage driver in France causes 6-year-old to fall off bike – then attacks her father and police

Police in France have arrested a 22-year-old man after a road rage incident in which he caused a six-year-old girl to fall off her bike, attacked her father, then assaulted police officers who were trying to calm him down.

The Dauphiné Libéré reports that the incident began shortly before 6.30pm on Wednesday evening as a man, accompanied by his two daughters, cycled along Grenoble’s Rue de Stalingrad towards Rue des Alliés.

A car approached them from behind at speed, with the motorist said to be beeping his horn “furiously,” causing the girl to fall off her bike.

The motorist then got out of the vehicle and attacked the girl’s father, hitting and kicking him, and then attempted to drive off, but was prevented from doing so by passers-by.

Officers from Grenoble’s local police force arrived and restrained the man with handcuffs, then called for assistance from the Police Nationale.

Once they arrived, they told the local officers to release the man and issue him with a summons to appear at a police station the following day.

But the newspaper says that as soon as the man had the handcuffs taken off, he began insulting and threatening the cyclist once more, and then threw insults at the police when asked to calm down, as well as spitting at the officers and trying to punch one of them in the head.

He was arrested for “outrage et rebellion” – roughly comparable to insulting behaviour and resisting public authority – and taken into custody, the Dauphiné Libéré adds.