A French teen and his friends were brutally attacked by several men in the commune of Fécamp after the young man was recognized as being the son of a local police officer by one of the attackers.
The incident started when a man asked the teen and his friends, aged between 16 and 17, for a cigarette at around midnight on Saturday, and then after the man realised one of the young men was the son of a local police officer, he returned with four more men who violently attacked the group of teens, Actu 17 reports.
The victims were kicked and slapped, with one having his glasses broken in the attack and one of the teens being given a 21-day medical leave from work in a hospital due to the extent of the injuries he suffered.
According to police, two of the attackers, a 21-year-old and a 23-year-old, were already well-known to police and were on suspended sentences for other crimes they had previously been convicted of. The two were brought in front of a court earlier this week but only received 8 months and 12 months in prison for the assault.
The attack comes as France grapples with an increasing number of attacks on police officers themselves, along with other emergency personnel. In September, one case even proved deadly when police chief of the city of Rodez, Pascal Filoé, was stabbed to death by a man allegedly seeking revenge for losing his attack dog.
Police are not the only victims of random acts of violence, even mobile medical staff in Toulon have been targets of violence and were forced to begin wearing bullet-proof vests as a result.
Last year, firefighters in the Alpes-Maritimes department also spoke out against violence directed at them, creating a video urging people not to attack members of their staff while they were out dealing with emergency situations.
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