(Strasbourg) A mosque and two Turkish associations in eastern France were tagged with crosses of Lorraine, a symbol traditionally attributed to Gaullism and the Resistance, we learned on Sunday from the prosecution and Muslim officials who denounced a “provocation”.
“An investigation will be carried out,” said the Besançon prosecutor’s office.
In Pontarlier, the crosses were affixed on the walls of the Philippe-Grenier mosque and on those of the Association of Turks of Pontarlier, told AFP Abdallah Zekri, president of the National Observatory for the fight against Islamophobia. .
On the mosque, the police thus counted “six crosses”, traced with a spray of red paint, according to the prosecution.
Similar crosses were also found on the building of the Franco-Turkish Friendship Association in Montlebon, near Morteau, about thirty kilometers north of Pontarlier, according to Mr. Zekri and the prosecution.
The tags on the mosque were observed Sunday morning by faithful who were going to pray, told AFP its president Boubaker Lamamra, who was to file a complaint.
The Philippe-Grenier mosque had already been damaged in the past but “this is the first time that I have seen crosses of Lorraine”, explained Mr. Lamamra.
The use of the cross of Lorraine, symbol of the Resistance, could mean “we are resisting Islam”, he said, seeing in these tags an “Islamophobic” act.
“We strongly condemn this provocation,” Zekri said.
“We are very surprised that it is a cross of Lorraine […] corn […] we are in full straight line towards the presidential election and the current hate speech […] only reinforce anti-Muslim acts, ”he added.
Mr. Zekri again denounced an “unhealthy climate” around Islam and feared an “escalation” which would last, according to him, “until the presidential election”.
As the April 2022 presidential election approaches – to which President Emmanuel Macron, who has not yet expressed his intentions, should represent himself – the French political scene is stirred by the entry on the track of an ex -journalist of Figaro turned far-right polemicist, Éric Zemmour, who primarily targets Islam in a radical discourse.