A Roma teenager is in a coma in hospital after being attacked by angry residents of a French housing estate who accused him of breaking into an apartment, reports The Guardian.
The 16-year-old was found badly beaten in a supermarket trolley where he had been left near the nationale 1 motorway in the Seine-Saint-Denis area late on Friday.
Anti-racism organisations say there is a disturbing increase in violence against Roma and called on the authorities to condemn the attacks.
The European Grassroots Anti-racist Movement (Egam) president, Benjamin Abtan, said: "There are racist insults and attacks against the Roma that are being used with increasing frequency. We are waiting for a radical change in the way this is being addressed and an extremely clear condemnation of the violence."
The French president, François Hollande, called the attack "unspeakable and unjustifiable". In a statement he said: "All efforts should be made to find the perpetrators of this attack."
According to police, the latest victim was dragged out of his unofficial camp by a dozen locals, who accused him of breaking into a nearby flat earlier on Friday. The group took the youngster to a cellar and beat him. "A group of several people went to find him in the camp and took him by force," a police officer told Le Monde.
The teenager's mother alerted the police, who found him severely injured and unconscious shortly before midnight. The victim was taken to hospital where his condition is said to be critical. He had reportedly been put in a medically induced coma because he was in so much pain.
Police said the youth was known to them, while the local mayor, Michel Fourcade, said the victim had been arrested several times in the previous fortnight after a number of cars in the area were broken into.
SOS Racism said the attack on the boy was caused by an "alarming" change in attitudes towards Roma, which it added was "the clear result of the disgusting tensions into which our citizens have been plunged".
In February, the case against a 40-year-old man accused of throwing a mixture of bleach and cleaning fluid at Roma living near the Place de la République in central Paris was dismissed by a French judge for lack of evidence.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.