French authorities have opened a criminal investigation after pig heads were discovered outside at least nine mosques in and around Paris this week, with some marked with President Emmanuel Macron’s name. The incidents have fueled anxiety within France’s Muslim community and renewed concern over the sharp rise in anti-Muslim hostility.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau denounced the acts, stressing that “Muslim citizens must be able to practice their faith in peace.” Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez said investigators were also examining the possibility of foreign involvement, noting similarities to earlier attacks tied to outside actors.
By Wednesday, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that the perpetrators were foreign nationals who had already fled France. Investigators tracked the case to a farmer in Normandy who sold pig heads to two men in a car with Serbian plates. Surveillance footage later showed the same vehicle dropping the heads outside mosques in the capital before fleeing across the Belgian border. The men reportedly used a Croatian phone line traced by police.
Authorities have opened proceedings for “incitement to hatred aggravated by racial or religious discrimination.” Alim Burahee, who heads one of the targeted Paris mosques, described the events as “catastrophic and disappointing,” warning that such acts raise fears of what might follow.
Muslim organizations report growing unease among worshippers as racist violence surges. France’s human rights commission counted 181 anti-Muslim acts in the first six months of 2025, an 81 percent increase compared with last year. Recent cases include the murder of a Tunisian barber in June and the stabbing of a Malian worshipper inside a mosque in April.
The prosecutor’s office called the latest attacks “a new and sad milestone” in the intensification of anti-Muslim hatred in France, a country with more than six million Muslim residents.
