Le Nouvel Observateur reports that a pig’s head was left outside the door of a mosque and Islamic centre in Reims.

Rachid El Haouari, the president of the association that runs the centre, said this was the culmination of increasing acts of Islamophobia that they had suffered since the construction of the mosque began at the end of 2009. These have included insulting emails, letters containing burnt pages of the Qur’an and a poster campaign against the building of a minaret. In November 2010 there was an arson attack on the site of the mosque.

In a statement the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) condemned the desecration suffered by the mosque and Islamic center and expressed its concern at the upsurge of violence and hatred against places of prayer and meditation. It said the number of such attacks had more than doubled in 2010.