After the attack on the Bayonne mosque, several Muslim associations warn the public authorities and call to put an end to a climate they consider deleterious, linked in its opinion to the debate around the veil and the place of Islam in France. Thursday, at the call of several representatives of mosques in the region of Douai, in the North, a hundred people gathered in front of the grids of the sub-prefecture.
"We demand strong statements from the government to eradicate anti-Muslim hatred," said a protester in Europe 1. "They do not like us, they are against us, against Islam," he said. president of the mosque of Douai. "These are words that you hear every day, that's enough, what do you want, a civil war, it's not possible, it has to stop." During their meeting with the sub-prefect, these faithful particularly insisted on the need for police protection near the mosques of the region.
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"We went from an invisible Islamophobia to an assumed Islamophobia"
In fact, in the last ten days, Islamophobic acts have multiplied in the news. In addition to the attack in front of the Bayonne mosque, there were these swastikas on the site of another mosque in Charleville-Mézières, the words of Senator Jean-Louis Masson who compared the veil to a witch costume for Halloween . Finally, last weekend, the football club Grabels, a village in the Herault, was the target of Islamophobic remarks. Its president, Nassiri Mustapha, discovered the inscription "Stade islamiste: aux armes citoyens" written on the cloakroom. "It shocked us [...] It fell on us, but tomorrow it will fall on a small village in the neighborhoods", he reacted to Europe 1.
A complaint has been filed. This reflex is necessary, insists Jawad Bachar, the director of the Collective against Islamophobia which notes a disinhibition of language. "We went from an invisible Islamophobia to a really visible and assumed Islamophobia, as we can see with the analysis of our figures, put in parallel with comments made in the politico-media sphere," explains the association leader. "It encourages people to take action."
In 2018, the Islamophobic acts identified by the collective increased by 52%. An increase that continued this year.