Racist attack on Muslim couple in Annecy

Islam & Info reports that a Muslim couple who are on holiday in Annecy in south-eastern France were racially abused and assaulted by a group of skinheads on Saturday night.

24 heures adds that a Swiss man, described by the Public Prosecutor’s office as belonging to an “extreme right-wing group”, has been arrested in connection with the attack and charged with “intentional violence while drunk”. He has been remanded in custody and will appear in court in October.

In a statement, the rector of Lyon Mosque, Kamel Kabtane, condemned this “new attack where the victim is once again a Muslim woman” and said that it “shows the climate of Islamophobia maintained in some nationalist circles”.

Recalling the planned attack on a mosque at Vénissieux earlier this month, he added: “We see that, despite the measures taken by the government, far from subsiding the situation continues unabated.”

L’Essor Savoyard recently reported on the worrying growth of the far right youth organisation Jeunesses Nationalistes in Annecy.