  We study the persistent current in a system of SU($N$) fermions with
repulsive interaction confined in a ring-shaped potential and pierced by an
effective magnetic flux. By applying a combination of Bethe ansatz and
numerical analysis, we demonstrate that, as a combined effect of spin
correlations, interactions and applied flux a specific phenomenon can occur in
the system: spinon creation in the ground state. As a consequence, peculiar
features in the persistent current arise. The elementary flux quantum, which
fixes the persistent current periodicity, is observed to evolve from a single
particle one to an extreme case of fractional flux quantum, in which one
quantum is shared by all the particles. We show that the persistent current
depends on the number of spin components $N$, number of particles and
interaction in a specific way that in certain physical regimes has universality
traits. At integer filling fractions, the persistent current is suppressed
above a threshold of the repulsive interaction by the Mott spectral gap.
Despite its mesoscopic nature, the current displays a clear finite size scaling
behavior. Specific parity effects in the persistent current landscape hold.
