Paris
–
The mutilated pig’s head was dumped outside the mosque, red hands painted in the Holocaust Memorial, and David’s star sprayed on a Paris neighborhood: French authorities suspecting plausible interference with foreigners in a series of actions that cause internal tensions in France.
According to Paris Police Chief Laurent Nunes on Wednesday, the pig heads found outside nine mosques in and around Paris on the night of September 8, the latest case to stir up these allegations, with the Paris prosecutor’s office investigating that hate crimes could be sponsored by foreign countries.
CCTV footage shows two men driving to Paris before depositing pig ruins, according to the Paris Prosecutor’s Office.
The director is said to have been held responsible for having “explicit intentions to cause anxiety within the country,” according to a statement Thursday.
The Normandy farmers sold about 10 heads to two people in a car carrying Serbian license plates, prosecutors added that authorities tracked a Croatian SIM card that the man reportedly used on the Franco-Belgia border.
The farmer spoke to CNN affiliate France 2 and said, “Two foreigners who did not speak French spoke bad English.”
He is used to selling pig heads to chefs, but said it’s rare for farmers to sell 10 at a time. Furthermore, the man put his head directly into the trunk of the car, raising suspicion.
“Keep them cold, you can forget about it,” he said of the head of the trunk, and later warned the authorities, he told France 2.
French defense sources told CNN that these actions were “manipulation in pro-Russian territory,” but interference was not necessarily “expected” due to lack of support from pro-Russian media and online outlets.
The incident comes at a time of severe conflict between Russia and France, with French President Emmanuel Macron as a supporter of Ukraine’s robust security guarantee voice as part of a potential peace deal. While Russia has denied interfering with issues of other states, the Russian state-controlled media prefers to cast European countries like France on hot button issues such as immigration and cultural conflicts.
Speaking in an interview with Cnews on Thursday, Paris Police Chief Nunes said the intention behind the pig’s head was to “divorce, actually incite the flames of division.”
The incident has significant similarities to past hateful acts of France.
Foreign perpetrators are associated with previous acts aimed at inciting hatred. The three Bulgarians are suspected of painting a red hand at the Holocaust Memorial in Paris in May 2024, with prosecutors in Paris suggesting that Russia is behind the crime.
According to CNN affiliate BFMTV, authorities were detained in France when a Moldovan man believed to have masterminded a painting of around 60 blue stars David’s walls on the walls of Paris and its surroundings, and the authorities were detained in France.
France has been the target of an “unprecedented disinformation campaign” since January 2025 and since January 2025 to January 2025, according to the French Ministry of Defense. A 2025 European Union report found that in three cases from the 2024 “hostile actors” targeted France, with 152 giving birth to Russia and China.
Authorities in the Paris region have been investigating nine criminal cases suspected of being sponsored by foreign powers since 2023, said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau.
She told BFMTV that suspects often spend little time in France and sometimes send evidence of their actions to their handlers.
Amidst backlash in Israel’s rising death toll in Gaza conflict, previous incidents against Jewish sites have caused a media frenzy about this particularly brave anti-Semitism act, but the pig’s heads had no same effect.
“It is also noteworthy that French society has shown great resilience from the start, questioning its origins,” a French defense source told CNN.
France has seen a surge in anti-Semitism since the Israeli war in Gaza. According to the French government, 1,570 such acts were recorded in 2024, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
French government figures show that Islamophobia behavior increased by 72% in France in the first three months of 2025.
Additional reports by Philippe Cordier and Cecilia Laurent Monpetit.
