My experience in Lille, France would concur with that. Never had I seen such blatant racism as I did when I went out for the night with another white (swede) and a black friend.

The black friend was not allowed in a club that we were and had two instances I saw in different bars of overt racial comments from strangers in the short time we were drinking together. It was weird.

He came back to the next day with a beat up face and a story of some horrible events that unfolded shortly after I'd went to bed.

This guy was dressed like us and in school to be a lawyer. He wasn't loud or anything you might think that might draw attention to him other than his skin color.

Growing up in the states and living in a few cities in Europe and in traveling, I'd never seen anything like this in my life.

N=1 and all that but it was truly bizarre.