Authorities in northern France have launched an inquiry into allegations of violence and racism by members of a far-right group in the city of Lille, after an undercover Al Jazeera investigation exposed Generation Identity (GI) activists carrying out a racist attack on a teenage girl and admitting to a series of other assaults on Muslims and Arabs.
Thierry Pouquet du Haut Jusse, Lille's public prosecutor, announced the preliminary inquiry into the racist incidents shown in Al Jazeera's documentary, Generation Hate, late on Wednesday, according to the Voix du Nord newspaper.
The "people who appear in [Al Jazeera's] report are going to have to explain themselves to police officers in order to 'define the criminal offences which might lead to prosecutions'," said Voix du Nord.
The documentary, broadcast on Sunday, showed one GI activist punching a teenage girl in the head several times in Lille's city centre in January.
The assailant, identified as Remi Falize, in a secretly filmed conversation, afterwards said: "Girl, or no girl, I couldn't give a f***. They are just Arabs."
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