An unidentified individual stole a copy of the Quran from a mosque near the French city of Lyon and set it ablaze, local Muslim leaders and police said Tuesday, in the latest incident underscoring a surge in anti-Muslim hate crimes across the country.
The attack occurred overnight Sunday into Monday in the Rhône region, when "an individual with an uncovered face entered the prayer room, grabbed a copy of the Quran, set it on fire, then dropped it outside the building before fleeing," the regional council of mosques said in a statement. Police have opened an investigation into the incident.
The desecration comes just days after a racially motivated shooting in the southern town of Puget-sur-Argens, where a French man who had posted far-right, anti-immigrant videos killed his Tunisian neighbor and seriously wounded a Turkish man. Authorities arrested the suspect shortly after the attack. According to Le Parisien, he had pledged allegiance to the French flag and incited violence against people of foreign origin in online videos.
France's anti-terrorism prosecutors have taken over the investigation, marking the first time a racist attack linked to the far right is being prosecuted as an act of terrorism since the office was created in 2019.
Separately, in April, a Malian man was fatally stabbed in a mosque, a case still under investigation by regional prosecutors.
France, which has the European Union’s largest Muslim population, has witnessed a worrying rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic incidents amid growing political tensions.
On Monday, a Turkish-born man was convicted in the United Kingdom for burning a Quran outside the Turkish Consulate in London earlier this year. In Sweden, Salwan Momika, an Iraqi Christian who burned copies of the Koran in a series of provocative incidents, was shot dead in January.
