Pig heads, some with “Macron” scrawled on them, found outside nine Paris mosques

Pig heads appeared outside at least nine mosques in and around Paris on Tuesday (September 9, 2025), authorities said, with French President Emmanuel Macron’s name scrawled on five of them.

Authorities did not say who could be behind the attacks but pledged support for France’s Muslim population at a time of rising anti-Islamic sentiment. France has Europe’s largest population of Muslims, over 6 million, for whom pigs are considered impure.

“I want our Muslim compatriots to be able to practice their faith in peace,” Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told reporters. “I understand they feel hurt.”

Retailleau said he could not rule out foreign interference to unsettle France as it faces a fiscal and political crisis.

“We can’t avoid drawing parallels with previous actions, which often took place at night and were proven to be acts of foreign interference,” he said.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said four pig heads were found outside Paris mosques and five on the capital’s outskirts.

A Paris police unit is investigating the incident for suspected incitement to hatred, aggravated by discrimination, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.

“These clearly coordinated acts mark a new and sad stage in the rise of anti-Muslim hatred, and aim to divide our national community,” said the Grand Mosque of Paris.

“In the face of hatred, the Muslim citizens of France are determined to work for the unity of our country.”

Racism is rising in France, according to a 2024 report from France’s human rights commission. Seventy-nine anti-Muslim acts were recorded by the interior ministry between January and March 2025, a 72% rise on the same period in 2024.

In June, after a Tunisian barber was shot dead by his neighbour, France’s anti-terror prosecutor’s office PNAT opened its first investigation into a murder inspired by far-right ideas.

In April, thousands protested after a Malian was stabbed to death in a mosque by an intruder who insulted Islam while filming the act.