"An Ordinary Hate Diary"press stories exposing anti-Muslim hostility in France

The French website Mediapart has launched a new series of articles that reveal the facts of Islamophobia that afflict French society, persecuting the Muslim component within it. In media coverage that comes ahead of presidential elections in which candidates compete over who is the most hostile to Muslims among them.

The French website Mediapart has launched a series of press stories that reveal the facts of racism and Islamophobia that are rampant in the social fabric of the republic, and the lives of its victims, including Muslims, are disturbed by the persecution they suffer there.

While the site chose to take this initiative amid the momentum of the presidential elections expected next April, due to the competition witnessed between the right-wing candidates , who are the most hostile to Muslims. It also highlights the impact of that escalating hate speech on civilians, and the resulting crimes, even before the start of the electoral battle.

On Monday, the site published the first episodes of its series , which told the story of Yassin, a young man of Algerian origin, who was assaulted by burning equipment to build his house in the town of Saint-Jaures (southwest of the country), just because the plan for the future house included a private prayer room.

The first episode the fires of Beit Yassin!

St. Juris, a small town in the southwest of the country of no more than 900 residents, woke up on November 24 to the smell of smoke that filled its gray winter sky with an unusual black mark. This was the atmosphere's testimony to the details of a hate crime targeting the new Muslim youth in the village.

While the story began when Yassine (34 years old), an Algerian businessman from Lyon, decided to search for a quiet place to build his dream home after many years of living in the bustling urban areas. He was interested in a plot of land of an area of ​​11,000 square meters in the town of San Joris, suitable for the establishment of a small farm and a spacious house for his two daughters to grow up in.

Yassin purchased this plot of land, and quickly requested the necessary permits to start construction operations, and even put the project's completion equipment on the ground in anticipation of the start of work on it. However, someone leaked the plan of the house to the residents of the village, which includes, in addition to ten rooms, a chapel for the Muslim youth and his family.

The presence of this chapel sparked a hate campaign that targeted Yassin and incited against him without his knowledge, and spread rumors to the extent that he described it as plotting an “Islamic plot” to establish a mosque and secret Quranic writers. Thus, he was placed under investigation by the residents, and led to many violations of his personal and family privacy.

The persecution that Yassin was subjected to did not stop at this point, but went beyond him by burning the construction equipment he had placed on the ground, causing him losses of tens of thousands of euros. The mayor of the town was threatened by right-wing extremist groups who entered a line, accusing him of "favoring the Islamic occupation", until he acquiesced to their demands to cancel the building permits for Beit Yassin. Inciting posters against Muslims spread on the town's walls days after the fire incident, which was recorded against an unknown person.

"Ordinary Hate"

Mediapart revealed that his journalist, who worked on the reportage, was also threatened by one of the activists who incited against Yassin in Saint Jaures. She said that "Joe", a resident of the town and the son of a former collaborator with the Nazi Vichy government there, who led the campaign of incitement against Yassin, threatened the journalist in order to withdraw his racist statements he made during the reporting.

While the French website seeks, through this series of reports, to reveal the extent of the impact of inflammatory electoral rhetoric against Muslims in the spread of hate crimes in the country. The site explained that: "Through the series "Ordinary Hate Facts", the site reveals what racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism espoused by many candidates and media in this country because they are often invisible, and therefore it will be an opportunity To give them the floor at least once a week.