Daniel (whose family name was not revealed) was filling up the Luxembourg company car, a Mercedes, at a service station inside a large shopping centre on 10 September, when he was attacked by a 31 year old Dijon man.

Surveillance video broadcast by France 3 Bourgogne-Franche-Comté shows several customers watching the attack before getting in their own vehicles and driving away.

Daniel’s boss, Jérôme Meunier, told the TV station on 11 September:

“The video lasts 11 minutes. For 11 minutes, he said, ‘help me, help me’. For 5 minutes, he said ‘put a car in front’ [to block-in the Mercedes]. The [attacker] didn’t have a knife. He stabbed [Daniel] with his car keys. That’s inhumane.”

Meunier, CEO of Mago Invest, also stated:

“I will press charges against every person that I identify in the video for failure to assist a person in danger. That could have happened to my son, because normally it’s him to fills up my car, that could have happened to anyone.”

Jérôme Meunier says he will press charges against service station customers who failed to aid his employee, who was assaulted earlier this month, in a TV interview broadcast on 11 September 2018. Credit: France 3 Bourgogne-Franche-Comté

Daniel was released from the hospital on 11 September.

France 3 obtained and broadcast the surveillance footage on 19 September. In this report, Meunier said:

“There are altogether about 6 or 7 people during 12 minutes [of video footage]. I dunno, if someone would have seen that, someone should have thought ‘let’s help this guy’. But there, [people apparently thought to themselves] I’m just getting petrol, I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything.”

Meunier then stated:

“If the [attacker] had a knife, this wouldn’t be a question. If he had a pistol, this wouldn’t be a question. But this person had nothing.”

Two hours after the carjacking, the alleged attacker was arrested at Lyon’s airport after crashing the stolen car on the tarmac.

Video footage of the carjacking in Dijon, broadcast on 19 September 2018. Credit: France 3 Bourgogne-Franche-Comté

Meunier told France 3 of the incident:

“[What] if he had decided to drive the car into the city centre and mow down people like what happened in Nice [in 2016]… wouldn’t it have been better to unite to solve the problem then, as we’ve seen many times in the news, rather than say, ‘oh la la, it will be a hardship if I do something, things will turn against me.’ That’s too easy. And that’s too self-centred.”

After being arrested, the presumed attacker was given a psychiatric examination and forcibly hospitalised.