Photo: Tik Tok
A French man is facing possible jail time after a ski lift prank didn’t get the reception he probably thought it would. A video posted to Tik Tok from February 28, 2025 shows the unidentified man dropping a basketball-sized snowball from a chairlift and yelling “bon apetit” at the unsuspecting people eating lunch below. Well, the snowball hit a 61-year-old man in the face while he was sitting with his grandfather and local police have opened an investigation for “intentional violence with a weapon.”
Uh oh.
The incident happened at a resort in the French Alps and while the prankster reportedly claimed he was aiming for the table and not the man’s head, according to The Times, a lawsuit has been filed. Officials were able to identify the man on the ski lift by checking his ski pass and cross-referencing the exact time the lift was passing over the victim’s location. Now, he faces up to three years in jail if convicted, according to The Times.
“We filed a lawsuit straight away. We met the victim, a very nice man who has a flat [near Alpe d’Huez] and who was spending his holidays with his family in the resort. We advised him to file a lawsuit which he did, because I think this type of behaviour must be punished,” said Fabrice Boutet, managing director of the Sata. “It’s dangerous for other people, like when individuals throw stones from a bridge over a motorway onto the cars below,” adding that “when you come to a mountain, it is for pleasure, not to be bothered by this type of irresponsible person.”
The video was originally posted to Tik Tok with a caption that translates to “when you are considered a public danger.” The video received three million views, according to The Daily Mail. The video can now be seen online here.
