PARIS (Reuters) -A police investigation showed foreign nationals placed the pig heads that were found outside at least nine mosques in and around Paris on Tuesday, the Paris Prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.
The probe established that the pig heads “had been placed there by foreign nationals who immediately left the country, with the clear intention of causing unrest within the nation,” the statement said.
“A farmer from Normandy came forward to tell investigators that two people had come to buy a dozen pig heads from him, and described their vehicle, which had Serbian number plates,” it added.
CCTV footage showed these same individuals had arrived in Paris in the same vehicle during the night of Monday, September 8, to Tuesday, September 9.
The images also showed two men leaving the heads in front of a number of mosques. They are likely to have used a Croatian telephone line, which was traced to having crossed the French-Belgian border on Tuesday morning, after the crimes were committed.
French authorities on Tuesday had pledged support for France’s Muslim population at a time of rising anti-Islamic sentiment. France has Europe’s largest population of Muslims, more than 6 million, for whom eating pork is forbidden.
Paris police chief Laurent Nunez had said he could not rule out foreign interference to unsettle France as it faces a fiscal and political crisis.
France has accused Russia of trying to sow discord in the past. Three Serbians accused of links to a “foreign power” were arrested after synagogues and a Holocaust memorial were defaced with green paint in May.
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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