On Saturday night, police in the south of France arrested 14 teenagers who were reportedly carrying pistols, knives, and baseball bats while dressed as evil clowns. Spooky!

According to Yahoo News, the teens were arrested after several complaints were made about "armed clowns" wandering around the port town of Agde. They were found in the parking lot of an Agde high school, a likely evil clown hang zone.

This isn't the only French town suffering through a wave of genuinely evil, weapon-carrying clowns. A clown (or a man dressed as a clown, hard to say) was recently arrested in the nearby city Montpellier after beating someone with an iron bar, and there have reportedly been multiple complaints in neighboring towns about residents being threatened by "scary clowns."

The Mirror quotes a French national police spokesman as saying:

"Since mid-October, a rumor inspired by videos published on the Internet has created the presence of threatening and aggressive clowns in France.

Symptomatic of the impact of the Internet, this phenomenon can lead to damaging individual acts and disturbances to public order."

Dear Clowns,

Stop, s'il vous plaît!

Love,
Everybody

[image via Shutterstock]