A French court sentenced a man to 25 years in jail for murder yesterday after he killed a teenager simply because he was of North African origin during a drunken shooting spree which he likened to going hunting.

Joel Damman, 50, roamed the streets of Dunkirk in northern France looking for Arab-looking victims on October 4, 2002. He said he had been a racist at the time but had since reformed.

"I just wanted to make them afraid at the start, then it was like going hunting," he told the court in Douai in northern France.

"Racism leads to hatred, hatred leads to death," prosecutor Patrick Tillie said.

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