A young woman wearing a veil was attacked in Marseille on Wednesday by a man who reportedly called her a terrorist.

The woman was leaving a metro station in the centre of the city when she was approached by a man who called her a terrorist, police said.

The man, who was in his 20s, then made a reference to the fact that she was wearing a hijab - a head covering worn by some Muslim women.

He then punched her in the neck and sliced her chest with what is thought to have been a box cutter, before fleeing the scene.

The woman escaped serious injury and was prescribed two days off work.

Police said that other Islamophobic attacks have surfaced in the area after Islamic extremists killed 129 people in Paris on Friday, but did not go into detail.

Attacks on veiled women in France have made headlines already this year, most notably in March, when a headscarf-wearing Muslim woman in her final month of pregnancy was violently assaulted in Toulouse, southern France.

Christophe Borgel, the local MP of Haute-Garonne, was outraged after hearing of the attack and it was “without a doubt” motivated by racism and anti-Muslim sentiment.

“I was shocked to learn of this attack. This French woman of Muslim faith was attacked because she was wearing the traditional headscarf,” said Borgel in a statement sent to The Local.

Source