French Journalist Attacked in Cairo's Tahrir Square

France 24's Sonia Dridi has become the latest female foreign journalist to fall victim to mob violence in Cairo. She was attacked and groped by around 30 men while reporting live on protests in the city's Tahrir Square, the Guardian reports. Her colleague Ashraf Khalil, assisted by a few bystanders, managed to get her to safety in a restaurant that closed its metal doors to keep the mob at bay. The network says its employees are safe, but "extremely shocked" by the attack.

"The crowd surged in and then it went crazy. It was basically me keeping her in a bear hug, both arms around her and face-to-face," Khalil tells the AP. CBS' Lara Logan was beaten and sexually assaulted in the same square last year. "Sexual violence is a way of denying women journalists access to the story in Egypt," Logan told the New York Daily News after hearing of the latest attack. "It’s not accidental. It’s by design." (More Cairo stories.)