A report on the pig heads found by French mosques and international suspicions
On September 8, 2025, French police found at least nine severed pigs’ heads outside several mosques in the Paris region, with four in the city and five in the inner suburbs, according to the Paris Police Prefect, Laurent Nuñez. Several of the pig heads were also reported to have the surname of French President Emmanuel Macron written in blue ink.
One of these mosques was the Javel Mosque, located a mile from the Eiffel Tower. The Mosque serves as a place of worship for a historically diverse Muslim community who have roots in Lebanon, Algeria, and Iran. Muslims are forbidden from eating pork and consider pigs to be unclean, leading to emotional shock in the community. CNN reported Nuñez said the police have opened an investigation into incitement to hatred aggravated by racial or religious discrimination.
News outlets, including CNN, Al Jazeera, and the BBC, highlight the similarities police have found with other recent incidents in the region, saying in the last two years, there have been two instances that have led to the same suspicions of discrimination in Paris: the Star of David graffiti in 2023 and the paintings of red hands on the city’s Holocaust memorial in 2024.
The BBC stated that the pigs’ heads were reportedly purchased from a farmer in Normandy by two men driving a Serbian-registered car. The same vehicle was seen in CCTV footage near some of the affected mosques. Police said that tracing a Croatian mobile phone showed the car crossing into Belgium early in the morning on September 9.
Their article continues, comparing the incident to June 2024 when images of coffins were found on Paris walks, saying “jets for Ukraine” to imply that Ukraine should be attacked, as well as another occurrence of five real coffins displayed in front of the Eiffel Tower labelled “French dead in Ukraine” as a form of protest to French military support for Ukraine in the war with Russia. CNN reports they were told by “a French defence intelligence source […] that these acts were a maneuver by the pro-Russian sphere.”
Unique reporting from CNN is that Russian state-controlled media casts European countries, like France, as tottering on the brink of anarchy over hot-button issues such as immigration and culture clash. However, CNN highlights Russia denies meddling in the affairs of other states, classifying opinions of Russian interference as speculation.
These events have left an impact on the people of Paris. Residents Rassool and Saphia Ait Ouarabi told Al Jazeera about their worries in an area they described to be generally calm. Rim-Sarah Alouane, a legal scholar and human rights researcher at the University of Toulouse Capitole, said foreign actors, were capitalizing on already existing wounds in French society. Al Jazeera quotes Alouane saying the point is “they [foreign actors] don’t even need to create the division or the chaos; it is already there.” Alouane continues saying they only need to exploit it: “this transforms a hate crime into a weapon of geopolitical disruption.”
The Guardian underlines anti-Muslim incidents in France rose by 75 per cent between January and May 2025 compared with a year earlier. Anne Hidalgo, the Paris mayor, said the city had taken legal action, and the interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, called the incidents outrageous and absolutely unacceptable, adding that he wants the Muslim population in Paris “to be able to practise their faith in peace.”
Chems-Eddine Hafiz, the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, denounced the Islamophobic acts as a new and sad stage in the rise of anti-Muslim hatred. Bassirou Camara, the head of the anti-discrimination group Addam, voiced worry, asking, “What will be the next step? Throwing pigs’ heads at worshippers or physically assaulting them?”
Najat Benali, Javel Mosque’s rector, told Al Jazeera that this was not the first time something like this has ever happened, but ends with the message “they wanted to destabilize us [the French Muslim community] against one another. Well, they were wrong.”