Vigilantes are being formed in France to confront people dressed as clowns amid a frightening trend that began as a British student prank.
One group was arrested in eastern France on Wednesday after being spotted on CCTV cameras in Mulhouse and Colmar town centres armed with baseball bats, tear gas and knuckledusters.
Questioned by police, the five suspects, aged 16 to 19, said they were on the lookout for clowns terrorising local people. They will be summoned for trial on charges of carrying a dangerous weapon and face a maximum jail sentence of three years.
Calls for clowns to be hunted in other French cities are flourishing on the internet amid what Aurore Van de Winkel, a lecturer in communication at Belgium’s Louvain university, called