The facade of the Ajan mosque (southwestern France) was disfigured on Saturday evening with offensive cartoons and a swastika, according to judicial sources and local officials.
A judicial source revealed to the French Press Agency that there is a swastika that is among the offensive drawings that were painted in red.
The head of the city’s Muslim Association, Masoud Stati, told Agence France Presse that he had been informed of it “by passers-by, who noticed the drawings on the facade.”
He explained that the investigative commissioned Agan police station received the surveillance cameras records.
Stati said that these recordings show a man entering the courtyard of the mosque "after midnight," explaining that it was "the first time we have witnessed this kind of abuse."
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanan condemned "in the strongest terms the unacceptable abuses that targeted the Ajan Mosque," and wrote on Twitter that "these heinous acts contradict the values of the republic," expressing his solidarity with the Muslims of Ajan.
"These cartoons (which come) 5 days before the Eid (Al-Adha) holiday are a provocation and an insult to the French Muslim citizens in Ajan," said the head of the French Observatory for Anti-Islamophobia, Abdullah Zakari. Hoping to arrest and punish the perpetrators.
The concerns of French Muslims have increased in recent years, with escalating incidents of Islamophobia, a media focus on the issues of the veil and Muslims, and the extreme right's pursuit of more political space within French institutions.