Vandals scrawled swastikas and racist slogans on the walls of two mosques in France and set fire to one of them on Sunday, the day French Muslims started celebrating Ramadan. In the town of Quimper in western France, 6 swastikas were painted in green on the walls of the Penhars Mosque. Local government official Philippe Paolantoni said a neighbour spotted the fire inside the mosque at around 4 a.m. and firefighters were called to the scene. "The community is well known and well integrated," he said, adding that several dozen people regularly attended prayers in the mosque.
French television and radio reported that racial insults and swastikas were also scrawled on the walls of a mosque in Carcassonne in southern France.
The Movement against Racism (MRAP) condemned the attacks and said they were a consequence of a link that was increasingly being made between Islam and terrorism, | gee, why would that happen? |
as well as talk of the "Islamisation" of France by far-right politicians in the run up to next year's presidential election. "MRAP plans to take legal action over this Islamophobe act," the group said in a statement. "It calls once again for more vigilance and a significant mobilisation to stamp out this worrying increase of racism against Arabs and Muslims."
The Quimper mosque had already had been vandalised several times since it was built in February 2003.
Five million Muslims live in France, the largest Muslim minority in Europe.
| I don't condone the violence and especially not the racism. But it is disingenuous to pretent that the link between Islam and terrorism is being "made" rather than "observed". |
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