The third was easily tracked down and arrested in an apartment in Alfortville, near Paris, Wednesday.

Police said they were far from surprised at the youth of the gang and that a girl was part of it. The number of young females involved in violent crime had doubled to 7,000 a year since 2003.

One of the male gang members already had a record of 41 offences, while the girl had a record of threatening behaviour and criminal damage, police said.

'They're capable of going very far, very fast,' lawyer Joseph Cohen-Sabban was quoted by Le Parisien newspaper as saying in remarks about how vulnerable girls from troubled areas were easily recruited for crime.