WARNING GRAPHIC PHOTO: Outrage in France after Roma boy beaten, left to die in brutal attack outside Paris

The brutal beating of a Roma boy in a suburb north of France has caused outrage at France’s highest levels, with President Francois Hollande denouncing it as ‘unspeakable.’ The boy remains in a coma at a Paris hospital.

When one thinks of vigilante violence against the Roma in France, most would assume the attackers are white and possibly supporters of the neo-fascist National Front. But polls show that nearly 80% of France agrees with openly xenophobic statements about the Roma.

That’s why many were not surprised recently when a Roma teenager was beaten nearly to death, not by skinheads, but by some two dozen French inhabitants who were reportedly of Arab and sub-Saharan African descent. The French state has led such a venomous anti-Roma campaign that it seems nearly everyone is on board with mistreating France’s poorest minority. France has only around 17,000 Roma, who dwell in truly third-world conditions. But instead of giving just a small degree of assistance, the administration of Francois Hollande has reached new highs in expulsions and camp demolitions, in a brutal campaign of state intimidation. The Roma teen remains in a coma, and while he has his supporters, the attack shows that France’s Roma hate is not limited to neo-Nazis, but can be found on almost every street corner. As long as France keeps denying the vast scale of its anti-Roma discrimination, and without a comprehensive government program to raise the Roma’s stature in the eyes of the average French person, France’s ‘anti-Roma hunt’ is likely to continue.

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