There are renewed concerns over levels of violence in France after the death of a 15-year-old student who was attacked near his school.
The student was attacked by several people as he left school on Thursday afternoon in Viry-Chatillon, about 20km (12 miles) south of Paris.
He suffered a cardiac arrest and died a day later, a police source said.
“This extreme violence is becoming commonplace,” said the town mayor, Jean-Marie Vilain.
Vilain told French media the boy was walking home after a music class at about 16:30 local time on Thursday when he was set upon by a group of youths.
Earlier in the day, French President Emmanuel Macron said schools needed to be “shielded” from “uninhibited violence among our teenagers and sometimes among increasingly younger ones”.
According to witnesses, he was punched and kicked by the attackers, who were wearing balaclavas.
He was taken to the Necker hospital, a top paediatric hospital in Paris, but doctors were unable to save his life.
Police are still looking for his assailants and are studying CCTV footage in an effort to identify them.
It was the second such incident in a week in France after a 13-year-old girl was attacked outside her school in Montpellier on Tuesday.
Tensions in French schools have been high since the killing of two teachers.
France plans mobile school force over death threats
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