Racial tensions in France at boiling point as anti-Muslim graffiti daubed in Grand Mosque
FRENCH police are on the hunt for a thug who broke into a mosque in southern France over the weekend and scrawled highly offensive aunts on the walls, local officials said.
The Perpignan Grand Mosque was daubed with racist graffiti over the weekend
The Grand Mosque of Perpignan, a town which lies close to the southern border with Spain, was also vandalised with a swastika on Friday night; and police found the words “Arabs out” daubed on one of the outside walls.
The anti-Muslim graffiti was spotted by the caretaker in the early hours of Saturday morning and was immediately removed, a local prefecture spokesman said, before adding that the mosque leaders had since filed a damages claim.
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Racists and all of those who are trying to divide the country have no place in France
The Perpignan prefect, Philippe Vigne, visited the Grand Mosque on Saturday afternoon “as a show of support and to express his solidarity towards the local Muslim community in the wake of the racist attack” the French interior minister, Bruno Le Roux, said.
In a press release issued on Saturday, Mr Le Roux strongly condemn the graffiti attack: “Racists and all of those who are trying to divide the country have no place in France, where all religions are equally respected.”
The attack was condemned by the French Interior Minister
The interior minister added that police were “doing all they could to find the culprits responsible for this heinous, intolerable act”.
This is not the first time that the Grand Mosque has been vandalised with a racial slur even though Islam is not a race: in January, a blood-stained pig’s head was dumped outside the mosque, and the word “out” was found scribbled on one of the walls.