The unnamed girl was coming back from a day at the beach with friends in Melbourne when a few of the passengers on the bus, notably two men, started shouting at her for singing popular French songs.

Another passenger, Mike Nayna, filmed the whole incident, admitting afterwards that he himself had been the victim of racial insults on public transport before.

One man shouted “speak English or die” to the French girl, and following jaunts from other passengers he said: “everybody on the bus wants to kill you, and you’re going to have to get off eventually, bitch”.

While speaking on his phone, he also described the girl as fat and “as ugly as f**king sin”, and threatened to cut her breasts off.

The Prime Minister of the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, has called the incident “absolutely shameful, and has called upon other to “give these people up so they can be brought to justice.”

Australian media has largely responded by criticizing the actions of the other bus passengers.

In an editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald, a journalist fiercely criticised the behaviour of the “idiots” on the bus and explained the incident as “mass hysteria, (due to) a deficient education or an unhappy past”.