A 14-year-old dressed as a clown was arrested today near Paris for attempting to attack a woman, as a strange phenomenon of fake, evil clowns terrorising passers-by spreads in France.
Another teenager in the southern city of Montpellier was sentenced to four months in prison for hitting a passer-by 30 times with an iron bar overnight Saturday. The teen was also kitted out as a clown.
Complaints have poured in recently over "armed clowns" wreaking havoc in various parts of the country -- some carrying pistols, knives or baseball bats -- and police have detained several people over the violent trend.
The phenomenon has even prompted anti-clown vigilantism, forcing police to step in to try and quell the hysteria by saying there have only been a few sightings of the grotesque pranksters.
A woman who had just got out of her car in Chelles near Paris called the police today, 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, and one of the pranksters was subsequently detained when police spotted him, white make-up still all over 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 at a station in Melun, also in the Paris suburbs, stealing their mobile phones, the police source added.
