18-Year-Old Gay Campaigner Dies After ‘Skinhead’ Attack In Paris.
Clément Méric, an 18-year-old student and well known gay rights activist in Paris has died after he was was violently attacked by a group of three ‘far-right skinheads’, including one women near the Saint-Lazare train station on Wednesday evening.
Four arrests have been made in connection to the attack including the individual suspected of delivering the final blow to Méric’s head in Wednesday’s attack.
The Local also reports that at least one of the attackers wore knuckle-dusters according to initial reports.
An eyewitness, named only as Aurelia, described to French journalists the horrendous scene she had witnessed.
“I was out doing some shopping, when I found myself face to face with the attackers,” who she told reporters had shaved heads and wore leather jackets.
“I saw the young man falling, and his head hitting a bollard. There was blood coming out of his ears and nose, and then he went into convulsions.”
“He had a huge lump at the back of his head, and his face was covered in blood,” she added.
Anti-gay crime has soared in the last few months, as France became the 14th nation to legalise same-sex marriages.
In April a gay dancer, Raphaël Leclerc was beaten unconscious in Nice, and Wildred de Brujin was attacked in Paris. Also in the same month four people were detained by police on suspicion of carrying out an attack at a gay bar in the French city of Lille.
Images have emerged of Méric marching against anti-gay violence on 17 April. The banner he held read: ‘Homophobia Kills’.
Hundreds of people attended a vigil in Paris last night in memory of Méric