Judges Recognise Anti-White Racism in French Teen’s Murder
24th July 2026
French investigating judges have added racism as an aggravating circumstance to the cases against all the suspects formally investigated over the 2023 killing of 16-year-old Thomas Perotto.
The decision, announced on Thursday, July 23rd, comes more than two and a half years after the fatal attack at the village’s winter dance in Crépol, in south-eastern France.
According to a source close to the investigation, the judges amended the charges after considering around 10 witness statements reporting remarks hostile to white people at the end of the dance, including: “We’re here to stab white people.”
Thomas Perotto, a secondary school pupil and rugby player, was fatally stabbed during the night of November 18-19, 2023, after violence erupted at the village event. Three other people were seriously wounded.
The alleged perpetrators are believed to be a group of young men from North African immigrant families from the working-class neighborhoods of nearby Romans-sur-Isère.
On June 12, prosecutors in Valence requested that eleven people stand trial over Thomas’s death.