Jewish teen beaten on French train

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LYON, France, July 5 (UPI) -- Two young men were arrested Thursday in France for an alleged anti-Semitic assault on a Jewish teenager on a train between Toulouse and Lyon.

The arrest took place at an army recruitment office in Lyon, Radio France Internationale reported.

Investigators said the 17-year-old victim was first verbally insulted Wednesday evening because he was wearing a Star of David pendant and then beaten. Passengers and conductors drove the assailants off.

The teen is a student at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, where three boys and a rabbi were killed in March. Mohamed Mera, the alleged killer, took his own life after a series of three attacks between March 11 and March 19 that took the lives of three French soldiers as well.

Statistics show an upsurge in anti-Semitic incidents after the killings, including an assault on three Jewish boys in a village outside Lyon in June. The Interior Ministry released a statement Thursday calling anti-Semitism "an offense against the values and history of our republic."