Well, this escalated quickly.
On Saturday, fourteen teenagers dressed as clowns and carrying pistols, knives and baseball bats were arrested outside a school in Agde, southern France.
A number of images of youths in the city dressed as clowns were seen on social media over the weekend.
In Montpellier, a 35-year-old man was beaten with a metal rod on Saturday night by a man dressed as a clown who tried to rob him with two accomplices. They were arrested the next day.
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The incidents, which began in the North, have now been reported around the country.
One of the earlier cases went to court last week: a 19-year-old butcher's apprentice, who had dressed as a clown to scare children in Douvrin, northern France, was given a six-month suspended prison sentence at a court in Béthune. He'd apparently terrorised children while holding a stick that resembled a long knife.
According to the Guardian he told the judge:
I saw it on Facebook. At first it was a joke, to scare my friends by dressing up as a clown and shouting boo with a stick like on Facebook. On the video it was a knife, but I didn't intend to hurt anyone.
An image posted to the Facebook page "Clowns of Béziers".
Over the weekend there were also apparently complaints to police from motorists in Palavas-les-Flots, Thézan-lès-Béziers and Cessenon-sur-Orb (Hérault).
Video from an LCI news report.
A 14-year-old boy was also arrested in Chelles, near Paris, on Monday, after attempting to assault a woman.
The Telegraph reported on a separate incident that took place a few minutes later: "a dozen people wearing the smiling, white masks associated with the Anonymous hacktivist collective attacked three youths at a station in Melun, also in the Paris suburbs, stealing their mobile phones."
vine.co / Via lepoint.fr
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