A French police car. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Police in the French city of Lyon have arrested the ringleader of an antisemitic attack on a Jewish man wearing a kippa that took place last Wednesday night.

Local media reported that the attack took place around 8 pm, as Jews marked the end of the two-day New Year holiday. The unnamed man was set upon by a gang of five assailants as he walked through Place Gabriel-Péri, in the Guillotière district of Lyon.

The ringleader, who is reported to be a minor, allegedly called the victim a “dirty Jew.” After the victim remonstrated against the insult, he was punched and kicked by the gang. Police officers who had been attending to a separate incident nearby arrived at the scene and arrested the ringleader.

The victim, who was slightly injured during the attack, subsequently filed a complaint.

In a statement released on Friday, the National Office for Vigilance Against Antisemitism (BNVCA) — a French group that assists the victims of antisemitic violence — confirmed that it was joining the victim as a civil party to his complaint.

“The BNVCA denounces and strongly condemns the antisemitic aggression committed in Lyon on Wednesday evening, September 9, at around 8 pm against a man of Jewish faith identified because he was wearing a kippa on his head,” the group said.

The BNVCA urged that the ringleader be served a “severe exemplary and dissuasive sentence” for the assault, irrespective of his legal status as a minor, along with “community service at a Holocaust memorial site.”