French Muslims find ‘Islamophobic' violence is overlooked after mosque murder

Middle East Eye

01-05-2025

Djilali Dhafer is stunned. A resident of the village of La Grand-Combe near Ales, in southern France, he still cannot come to terms with the tragedy that struck a neighbouring hamlet a few days ago.
Kadidja, the small mosque in Trescol, which he regularly attends, was the scene of a horrific crime.
On Friday, at around 8.30am, Olivier Hadzovik, a 20-year-old Bosnian-Frenchman, entered the place of worship where he was greeted by his future victim.
Aboubakar Cisse, a 23-year-old Malian man, was cleaning the mosque before the Friday prayer.
A few minutes later, surveillance footage showed the two men in the prayer room. As Cisse prostrated himself in prayer, Hadzovik pretended to imitate him before brandishing a knife and stabbing him dozens of times in the back, 57 times in total.
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"He then filmed himself in a state of jubilation, insulting God so as to leave an Islamophobic mark on his monstrous act," Dhafer told Middle East Eye.
In a video he posted on Snapchat, the killer proudly claimed responsibility for his crime. "I did it, I did it," he rejoiced. He then uttered a few incomprehensible words and added: "Your shitty Allah, your shitty Allah."
For Abdallah Zekri, vice president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) and chairman of the Observatory Against Islamophobia, the characterisation of the murder should be unequivocal.
"This is an Islamophobic crime, the worst of all those committed in France against our community," he told MEE.
'We are accused of every evil and presented as the enemies of France, while the violence we are suffering is completely ignored'
- Abdallah Zekri, French Council of the Muslim Faith
"After the desecration of graves, vandalism of Muslim places of worship and businesses, insults and physical violence, they are now killing worshippers inside mosques," he added, in reference to numerous incidents that have targeted French mosques in recent years, including arson attacks and pig heads found at their doors.
According to Zekri, the mosque murder is "the result of a growing stigmatisation of Muslims in France," fuelled by the shift to the right of the political class and the growth of Islamophobic rhetoric.
"From morning to night, the far-right media are bashing Muslims. You turn on the television and what do you hear? Islam, Muslims, migrants, OQTFs [deportation orders], it's only about this," he told MEE.
"We [Muslims] are accused of every evil and presented as the enemies of France, while the violence we are suffering is completely ignored," he added.
'A terrorist attack'
After three days on the run, Cisse's killer surrendered to the police near Florence, Italy. In a first statement to the media, his Italian lawyer, Giovanni Battista Salvietti, insisted that his client did not target his victim because of his religion.
"We asked him why he killed a Muslim. He replied that he didn't kill any Muslims, but the first person he found. The fact that the victim was a Muslim was a coincidence," the lawyer told the media.
"Regarding the crime, the mosque, it's as if he remembers nothing, as if he knew nothing about it. He says he got up with the conviction that he had to kill someone," he added.
For Dhafer, this explanation is infuriating.
'They're going to tell us again that the killer is a madman. That's always how they present the perpetrators of Islamophobic crimes'
- Djilali Dhafer, La Grand-Combe resident
"They're going to tell us again that the killer is a madman. That's always how they present the perpetrators of Islamophobic crimes," he said.
Ibrahim Cisse, Aboubakar's cousin, immediately rejected the framing of the incident as an isolated act committed by a psychologically unstable person.
"What happened is terrorism: it was premeditated, the person came consciously to kill someone in a mosque. We cannot accept to hear that this is an act of madness. I repeat, Aboubakar, for us, was the victim of a terrorist attack," he told the press.
On Sunday, the lawyer for the victim's family made the same observation.
"At this stage, the analysis of the known elements leaves no doubt: this was a terrorist attack," Mourad Battikh said in a statement, adding that the national anti-Tterrorism prosecutor's office had to take up the case without delay.
On Monday, while Hadzovik had not yet been transferred to France, a judicial investigation was opened by the local prosecutor's office for premeditated murder on the grounds of race or religion.
However, the terrorist motivation was not retained as requested by the victim's family and their lawyer.
Two members of the government, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau and Overseas Minister Emmanuel Valls, denied the Islamophobic dimension of the case.
"[Islamophobia] is a term that was invented over 30 years ago by the Iranian mullahs," Valls said.
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However, Prime Minister Francois Bayrou did use the term to refer to the crime on Saturday. "The ignominy of Islamophobia exposed itself on a video," he wrote on X, referring to the video posted by Hadzovik.
The suspected denial of Islamophobia by a part of the political class brought together hundreds of demonstrators in La Grand-Combe and Paris two days after the crime.
Zekri, who attended a silent march in the bereaved village, told MEE about a climate of immeasurable grief compounded by worry and anger.
"People on the ground fear that other murders will target Muslims. They feel they are safe nowhere," he said.
During the Paris demonstration, a woman was filmed crying in front of the leader of the left-wing French Unbowed (La France Insoumise, LFI) party, Jean-Luch Melenchon.
"Mr Melenchon, we Muslims no longer feel safe. We go out with fear in our belly, we no longer feel safe at all. A red line has been crossed," she said.
Her emotion was shared by the LFI leader, who denounced an Islamophobic political climate responsible for the death of the young Malian.
"When the interior minister in a meeting [against Islamism in March] says 'down with the veil,' can we imagine that someone shouted 'down with crucifixes?''" Melenchon said, accusing Retailleau of fuelling hatred against Muslims.
Sharp rise in anti-Muslim acts
For Vincent Geisser, the author of The New Islamophobia book and director of the Institute of Research and Studies on the Arab and Islamic Worlds (Iremam), politicians like Retailleau and Valls are to blame for the rise in anti-Muslim acts in France.
"They bear moral responsibility because they play on the fear of Islam and the fantasy of the Islamisation of French society," he told MEE.
Geisser also accuses political figures of downplaying cases targeting the Muslim communities by dismissing them as mere criminal acts.
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"In France, you have three homicides a day. Some are abominable. I don't go every time [to meet the victims' communities]," Retaillau told a journalist who raised accusations of double standards in the handling of crimes linked to religious beliefs after Cisse's murder.
In the hours following the crime, several media outlets and political leaders conveyed an initial version of events which presented the killing as stemming from an intercommunal quarrel.
"A worshipper stabbed to death by another worshipper in a mosque," some media reported, based on an initial statement by the public prosecutor.
"This, in my opinion, reveals a very communitarian and tribal view of the facts," Geisser told MEE.
"We never take racist crimes targeting Muslims seriously and we don't recognise Muslims' right to be victims," he said, adding that Cisse's murder was even rumoured to be a drug-related incident.
In parliament, left-wing MPs called on the interior minister to resign. "You fanned the flames of hatred, and today hatred has killed again," said Sabrina Sebaihi, a Green MP.
According to the National Directorate of Territorial Intelligence, 79 anti-Muslim acts have been recorded since last January, representing a 72 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2024.
However, according to the president of the CFCM, these figures are not representative.
"People don't file complaints because, each time, they are told that the perpetrator cannot be identified, and therefore the case is closed," said Zekri, who fears a resurgence of Islamophobic acts during the upcoming municipal and presidential elections, which will be held in 2026 and 2027 respectively.
In February, the interior ministry, along with an NGO dedicated to combating discrimination, Addam, launched a platform to better record anti-Muslim acts. Today, the group is calling on the French government to "recognise Islamophobia as a major threat to the Republic."