Shafaqna English– Many top politicians in France refuse to speak of “Islamophobia,” instead leaning into far-right narratives of the Islamic danger to the country.
Last Friday, April 25, Aboubakar Cissé was stabbed to death inside a Mosque in the southern French town of La Grande-Combe, where the twenty-two-year-old Malian man had lived for three years.
Given the taboo surrounding anti-Muslim violence in France, the killing seems primed to join a growing, yet relatively anonymous list of Islamophobic crimes that have targeted the country’s Muslim community in recent years.
All told, France’s Interior Ministry reported some 173 anti-Muslim acts in 2024, a figure that represents a 29 percent decline relative to the 2023 tally. Critics claim that incidents are woefully underreported, however. Between January and March 2025, cases of anti-Muslim violence surged by 72 percent compared to the same period the previous year.
Source: Jacobin