News is coming in of a brutal attack on a Jewish teenager in Paris last night.

Police said they were investigating the crime, which reportedly left the teen in a coma. Few details about the attack were immediately available from police, including the number of assailants and whether they were armed.

But President Nicolas Sarkozy, leaving for a visit to Israel later Sunday, issued a statement “renewing total determination to fighting all forms of racism and anti-Semitism.”

The police may not have released specific details but Sammy Ghozlan, who monitors antisemitic violence, told the European Jewish Press that a group of six or seven youths attacked the teenager - a 17 year old member of the Lubavitch Hasidic community identified only as “Rudi” - with metal bars and “smashed his skull.”

According to Ariel Goldman, head of the Jewish organization CRIF, there is “no doubt that this was an antisemitic attack.”

It is encouraging that a host of French government ministers have not hesitated to echo Goldman’s assessment. This was an act of utter barbarism, demonstrating that antisemitism can still be taken to merciless, murderous extremes.