France
Desecration of 148 Muslim graves in a war cemetery in northern France.
It was discovered that vandals had hung a pig’s head from one tombstone, desecrated others and wrote slogans insulting Justice Minister Rachida Dati, who was born in France to parents from Northern Africa.
The graves were in the Muslim section of Notre Dame de Lorette, among France’s largest war cemeteries, near the northern town of Arras. The dead are mostly from World War I, and the Muslim graves, representing the dead of colonial armies, are turned toward Mecca.
In April 2007, Nazi slogans and swastikas were painted on about 50 graves in the Muslim section of the same cemetery, and two men found guilty in the case were sentenced to a year in prison.
About 78,000 colonial subjects of France, many of them Muslims, died in World War I.
