French officials condemned on Friday the attack on a young Muslim woman who was eight months pregnant, and the Interior Ministry said an active search was under way for the assailants.
The 29-year-old woman was attacked in the southern French city of Toulouse on Tuesday by assailants who reproached her for wearing a headscarf, broadcater iTele reported, citing police sources.
She was hospitalized and gave information to investigators the following day, the report said.
"My wife was just coming from dropping our two daughters off at school, one in kindergarten and one in elementary school. When she left, she crossed the paths of two young men. One of the grabbed her hair and pulled on her veil, shouting, 'Not here!'" the woman's husband, identified only as Mounir, told local newspaper La Depeche.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve called the incident "shocking," and said law enforcement was seeking the attackers. "No French person can be attacked or threatened based on their origin or religion," he said in a statement.
Some 10,000 troops have been deployed across France to protect sites considered sensitive - including mosques and synagogues - in the wake of a three-day killing spree in Paris by gunmen claiming allegiance to international Islamist networks.
