Evil Clowns Reach France

The Phantom Clowns, the Evil Clowns, the Killer Clowns have had a banner year. They've been seen - and often photographed - in the USA, in the UK, and now France.

French police say "any person, aggressive clowns or hunters of

clowns, discovered in possession of a weapon ... will be arrested".

Credit: French National Police Facebook Page. 

A 14-year-old dressed as a clown has been arrested near Paris for attempting to attack a woman, in the latest incident of fake, evil clowns terrorising passers-by in France.
Complaints have poured in recently over "armed clowns" wreaking havoc in
various parts of the country.
Police have detained several people dressed as the pranksters - some
carrying pistols, knives and baseball bats.
The bizarre phenomenon has even prompted anti-clown vigilantism, forcing
police to try to quell the hysteria by saying there have only been a few
sightings of the terrifying clowns.
On Monday, a woman who had just got out of her car in Chelles, an eastern
suburb 18 kilometres from central Paris, called the police, saying two
clowns - one of whom was armed with a fake axe - had attacked her, a
source said.
They escaped when a passer-by armed with a baseball bat tried to stop them.
One of the pranksters was later detained when police spotted him, white
make-up still covering his face.
In a separate incident just half-an-hour afterwards, a dozen people
wearing the smiling, white masks associated with the Anonymous hacktivist
collective attacked three youths and stole their mobile phones at a
station in Melun, a south-eastern suburb of Paris.
The "evil clown" trend previously seen in the United States and Britain
only began in the north of France in early October.
In the town of Bethune, a 19-year-old received a six-month suspended jail
term last week for threatening passers-by while dressed as a clown.
The "clowns" have been "mostly spotted outside schools, but also on public
roads, in bushes, and in a square.
Their targets are often young children or teenagers, but also adults," a
police source in northern France said. It then spread to the south of
France.
'Clown hunters' also on police radarFrench police released information
warning against armed anti-clown vigilantes taking to the streets.
"The National Police have received many reports of clowns frightening
passers-by, but many are fanciful and the proportion of children," the
police service said on its Facebook page.
"Symptomatic of the impact of the internet, this phenomenon can generate
harmful individual derivatives and disturbances to public order.
"On social networks, groups calling for collective mobilisations against
clowns have appeared.
"Any person, aggressive clowns or hunters of clowns, discovered in
possession of a weapon on the highway will be arrested."
Police on Saturday night arrested 14 teenagers dressed as clowns and
carrying weapons in the Mediterranean port town of Agde.
In the nearby city of Montpellier, a man disguised as a clown was arrested
after beating a pedestrian with an iron bar.
Theories abound as to the origin of the not-so-funny trend of violence in
a country where Halloween has yet to take hold.
The suggestions include a challenge launched on social networks, a popular
video on YouTube showing a terrifying clown pranking people or even a
recent episode of the popular TV series American Horror Story featuring
Twisty the killer clown. Source.