Severed pigs’ heads dumped outside mosques, red hands daubed on a Holocaust memorial, Stars of David sprayed in Paris neighborhoods: French authorities suspect foreign – and plausibly Russian – interference in a chain of acts looking to stoke internal tensions in France.
The pigs’ heads, discovered outside nine mosques in and around Paris during the night of September 8, according to Paris Police Chief Laurent Nunez on Wednesday, is the latest incident to stir these suspicions, with the Paris prosecutor’s office investigating the alleged hate crime as being possibly sponsored by a foreign country.
CCTV footage showed two men driving into Paris and then depositing the porcine remains, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
The men allegedly responsible were foreigners who had since left France, according to a statement on Thursday, with the acts having, “the clear intention to cause unrest within the nation.”
Faithfuls leave Mosque Islah in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, on the outskirts of Paris, on Tuesday. – Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images
A farmer in Normandy sold about 10 heads to two people traveling in a car bearing a Serbian number plate, prosecutors said, adding that authorities tracked a Croatian SIM card the men reportedly used to the Franco-Belgian border.
The farmer, speaking to CNN affiliate France 2, said they were “two foreigners who didn’t speak French, spoke bad English.”
While he is used to selling pigs’ heads to chefs, the farmer said it was unusual to sell 10 at a time, additionally the men put the heads directly into the trunk of their car, raising his suspicions.
“Keeping them cold, you can forget it,” he said of the heads in the trunk, and later alerted the authorities, he told France 2.
In this deliberately blurred photo, a pig’s head which was dumped outside a mosque in Paris on Tuesday can be seen on the floor. – BFMTV
A French defense intelligence source told CNN that these acts were a “maneuver by the pro-Russian sphere,” but because of a lack of support from pro-Russian media and online outlets, the interference did not “work as well as anticipated.”
The incidents come at a time of stark confrontation between Russia and France, with French President Emmanuel Macron a vocal supporter of robust security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any potential peace deal. While Russia denies meddling in the affairs of other states, Russian state-controlled media like to cast European countries like France as tottering on the brink of anarchy over hot-button issues such as immigration and culture clash.
Paris Police Chief Nunez, speaking in an interview with CNews on Thursday, said the intention behind the pigs’ heads was “to divide, to actually fan the flames of division.”
Trail of clues
This incident has striking similarities with past hate acts in France.
Foreign perpetrators have been linked to previous acts intended to incite hatred. Three Bulgarians were suspected of painting red hands on Paris’ Holocaust Memorial in May 2024, with the Paris prosecutor suggesting Russia was behind the crime.
Graffiti on the “Wall of the Righteous” outside the Shoah memorial in Paris on May 14, 2024. – Antonin Utz/AFP/Getty Images
A Moldovan man believed to have masterminded the painting of some 60 blue Stars of David on walls in and around Paris was detained in France, with authorities investigating possible links with Russia, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
France has been the target of an “unprecedented disinformation campaign, orchestrated by pro-Russian circles” since January 2025, according to the French Defense Ministry, including the use of fake news sites and social media bots. A 2025 European Union report found that over one in three incidents from “hostile actors” in 2024 targeted France, with 152 cases originating in Russia and China.
Authorities in the Paris region have investigated nine cases of crimes suspected of being sponsored by foreign powers since 2023, Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.
A woman walks past a building tagged with Stars of David in Paris on October 31, 2023. – Lucien Libert/Reuters
She told BFMTV the alleged perpetrators often spend little time in France, sometimes sending proof of their acts to their handlers.
While earlier incidents against Jewish sites, coming amid the backlash over the soaring death toll in Israel’s conflict in Gaza, sparked a media frenzy around this particularly act of brazen antisemitism, the pigs’ heads did not have the same effect.
“It is also notable that French society has shown great resilience, with, from the outset, doubts about the origin,” the French defense intelligence source told CNN.
France has seen a spike in antisemitism since Israel’s war in Gaza, with 1,570 such acts recorded in 2024, according to the French government and 646 in the first six months of 2025, per CNN affiliate BFMTV.
There was also a 72% increase in Islamophobic acts in France in the first three months of 2025 compared to the previous year, according to French government figures.
Additional reporting by Philippe Cordier and Cecilia Laurent Monpetit.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
