PARIS — Video footage showing men assaulting a transgender woman during a demonstration in central Paris last weekend has prompted outrage and debate about transphobic attitudes in the country, in what some activists called a shift in France’s attitude toward transgender people.

The video, filmed on Sunday during one of the large, weekly demonstrations held by members of the expatriate Algerian community against Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who resigned as president of Algeria this week, shows the woman being taunted by several men and being repeatedly punched by one of them.

The footage had been viewed more than two million times on social media by Thursday.

Marlène Schiappa, France’s minister for gender equality, called the assault “clearly transphobic” and “unacceptable.” She said on Twitter, “The perpetrators must be identified and prosecuted.”