The suspected drug dealer who went viral for pushing a blonde woman down the steps of a Paris metro station has been deported back to Spain.

The man was arrested in mid-April after footage of him pushing a woman down the steps of the Porte de la Chapelle metro station in the French capital went viral on social media.

The unnamed man has been deported back to Spain and is banned from re-entering France, according to the Paris police.

On Twitter, the police said the man “of Spanish nationality” was deported to his home country and is now “forbidden to enter and stay in French territory”.

The victim reported the incident to the authorities and the man, said to be in his twenties and known to the police, was arrested in a Roma camp in the Paris suburb of Osny shortly afterwards.

Meanwhile, the cameraperson claimed that the woman “was under the influence of a substance” and that the man “asked her for five minutes to give her something” and that she “kept trying to hit him”.

She reportedly presented herself to the police as a drug addict and said the man was her dealer.

The filmed incident took place on 16th April and subsequently went viral on social media, prompting France’s immigration Minister Marlene Schiappa to become involved, urging the victim to come forward and for the police to track down the aggressor.

The video shows the blonde woman having a row with the man, who was calmly talking on the telephone and apparently having an argument with the woman at the same time.

At one point, she makes a lunge at his head but then decides to leave, and as she turns her back on him, he shoves her and sends her flying down the steps.

She narrowly manages to avoid serious injury by grabbing onto the handrail, but still bangs her head as she plunges forward and down the steps to the bottom.

At the time, the footage prompted a fresh anti–immigration debate because of the apparent origins of the attacker.

The criticism was spread by the hashtag ‘#LaRacailleTue’ which means “the riff-raff kill”. Far-right politician for the Rassemblement National, Nathalie Germain, tweeted the video along with the hashtag and the caption: “Meanwhile, the scum continues its gratuitous violence against women and the French in the middle of Paris!”

The row came amid heightened tensions over the immigration issue following reports of another woman who was raped by several men who the victim said appeared to be immigrants in the 8th arrondissement of Paris on 10th April after having her mobile phone stolen.