Roma boy attacked in Paris: the picture that will shock France (graphic content)
François Hollande calls brutal gang assault on 16-year-old Roma boy 'unspeakable and unjustifiable attack on all the principles on which our republic was founded' Warning: graphic image readers may find distressing. ● A mob of about 20 balaclava–wearing vigilantes snatched the teenager from his family after he was accused of burgling a nearby flat. They dragged him from the squalid Roma camp where his family had moved a month ago, hauled him across the tram lines to the nearby housing estate, and pummelled him in the basement of a building. A neighbour, a Roma who has been living in the area for several years, later found the boy unconscious in a car park, slumped in a trolley, wearing his red T–shirt and track suit bottoms, his face swollen and bruised. ● President François Hollande denounced last Friday's assault as an "unspeakable and unjustifiable attack on all the principles on which our republic was founded". But critics say government policy has stigmatised France's 20,000–strong Roma community, who mostly come from Romania and Bulgaria. The attack on Darius, whose surname has not been disclosed, was "the result of several years of inefficient public policy which maintains the misery of these Roma communities and allows the racism latent in French society to prosper", said Le Monde newspaper in its frontpage editorial.
Le Monde: Lynchage d’un jeune Rom : non à l’indifférence