Strasbourg – the Christmas capital for France, but also the seat of the European Parliament, may be decked out and one of the lowest crime areas in the hexagon and Europe, but that in no way means that extremes don’t happen and even “imported” ones. Yesterday, -16 December, at 23.00, a group of the Greek delegation of journalists covering the plenary session was confronted with an extreme situation of multi-layered violence.

Nikos Pappas, a Syriza MEP, was in a restaurant bar in the city’s main square alongside the Greek journalists, but not in the same company. Two of the group decided the evening was over and waved goodbye and headed for the exit of the venue. The MEP stood up and asked the journalist to speak, shouting that he had run him over and did not apologise. The journalist, clearly surprised, told the MEP that he never touched him and that he had attempted to trip him to the ground.

Pappas then followed the two journalists towards the exit. In the exit hallway, he grabbed the journalist by the neck, being behind him, and repeatedly struck him. The journalist who was attacked fell to the floor unable to react in the face of the former basketball player’s nearly 6 feet and body structure.

The two journalists in absolute shock shaking went back into the restaurant and addressed the others. The group of journalists left the area in which they met the MEP in a furious state attempting to attack the journalist again. The threats were followed by something even more extreme: “I hit you because look at you”. it became absolutely clear that the MEP had absolutely no intention of hiding behind ‘excuses’. He had confessed to the violent attack and insisted that it was only the beginning… after 20 minutes of ‘business’ the MEP left the scene saying ‘I apologise to you for the tension’ and the journalist returned to his hotel in a state of absolute shock.

The journalist says that an hour later Nikos Papas sent him apology messages and called him by phone only that too he seems to regret it as he deleted them minutes later (photo). The next day the journalist and most of the members of the Greek delegation saw Nikos Pappas coming down to the lobby of the hotel – he is staying in the same hotel – and sitting at the same table with his victim… “Good morning, everything okay?” was the first thing he said as he comfortably sat down for breakfast… the Greek journalist asked him to leave with Papa remarking “I can’t have coffee at my hotel?:

The victim of the attack, who was for hours in shock at what he suffered physically and verbally, claims that he has received threatening messages from Pappas in the past during the period when the latter was an athlete and not part of the elected representatives of our country in Europe.

The journalist, accompanied by the rest of the journalist team in Strasbourg, filed a complaint at the headquarters of the French police department in the city for more than an hour and the procedure of self-incrimination was initiated as the assault and the manual assault are not included in the provisions of the immunity for MEPs. See the full text of the complaint:

The head of the SYRIZA Eurogroup, Kostas Arvanitis, while the President of SYRIZA said a few minutes ago that he was unaware of what had happened.