Head of pig found in Muslim prayer room

August 20 2009 at 03:01AM

Toul, France - Vandals hung a pig's head from the door of a Muslim prayer room in eastern France and daubed the building top to bottom with swastikas and anti-Islamic graffiti, police said on Wednesday.

A passer-by alerted police earlier on Wednesday after discovering the pig's head suspended from the door and trotters from the shutters of the prayer centre, part of a North African community centre on the outskirts of the town of Toul.

France, home to Europe's largest Muslim community, estimated at five million, has seen a rise in Islamophobic attacks in the past two years, with neo-Nazi desecration of Muslim war graves and arson strikes on several mosques

Police arrested two young men in their twenties shortly after the incident, said local MP Nadine Morano, who is also junior minister for families in President Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing government.

According to a police source, the youths were caught spraying swastikas onto the wall of a kebab restaurant in a nearby town.

Sarkozy contacted the head of the French Muslim Council, Mohammed Moussaoui, to express his "indignation" and promised to "ensure those responsible are punished", the president's office said. - AFP