In a first, France opens terror probe for racist killing of Tunisian barber

On May 31, a Saturday, Hichem Miraoui was astatine his location successful southeastern France connected a video telephone with his sister Hanen, who lives nearby, and his parent successful Tunisia.

It was precocious greeting successful Puget-sur-Argens, his colony adjacent the French Riviera.

Suddenly, Hanen heard him exclaim. The telephone past dropped to the level and the enactment went silent.

Two hours later, Mouna Miraoui, his cousin, was astatine the Draguignan constabulary presumption a fewer kilometres north, identifying his body.

Miraoui had been changeable 5 times and killed successful what French investigators – successful a archetypal – are identifying arsenic a perchance racially motivated enactment of home terrorism.

“It’s a surviving hell, it’s unbearable,” Mouna told Al Jazeera by phone. “It was a daze for everyone. His sister fainted. Imagine if that time I had been invited to his location for meal oregon a drink. I person young kids, what would person happened then?”

French investigators person opened a coercion probe successful the execution lawsuit successful which different unfortunate was injured. A antheral identified arsenic Christophe Belgembe has been arrested.

The fishy regularly reposted contented from France’s far-right National Rally party. He has admitted to shooting Miraoui but pleaded not blameworthy to the racially motivated quality of the crime.

In respective videos uploaded to Facebook, which person since been deleted, the fishy appeared to person congratulated himself for “getting escaped of 2-3 pieces of junk”, the French quality tract 20 Minutes reported. According to 1 of Miraoui’s sisters, Belgembe was good known among residents for his xenophobic views, successful peculiar a “hatred of Arabs”.

Family members person told assorted media outlets that Miraoui, who was successful his forties, had felt progressively threatened by Belgembe, the ineligible proprietor of respective guns arsenic a subordinate of a shooting sports club, successful the days and weeks starring up to the alleged murder.

A hairdresser who was adjacent to his 5 sisters, Miraoui had been readying to instrumentality to Tunisia to sojourn his sick parent for the archetypal clip successful 8 years.

The alleged execution led to protests crossed France and brought to airy what antiracism groups are calling an “ambient climate” of anti-Arab hatred and xenophobia.

Between January and March of 2025, 79 Islamophobic hatred crimes took spot crossed France, an summation of much than 70 percent applicable to that aforesaid play successful 2024, according to the latest statistic from France’s interior minister.

On Sunday, respective 1000 radical gathered successful the confederate French metropolis of Marseille and Miraoui’s hometown to protestation against rising hatred crimes, raising signs speechmaking “racism has killed again” and “rest successful peace, Hichem”.

“Hichem’s decease is the effect of an progressively hardline ambiance that has been rising for respective months and years and that sets successful a spot much each day,” the family’s lawyer, Mourad Battikh, said successful a statement.

Over the past year, 3 men person been killed successful what look to beryllium racially motivated hatred crimes but Miraoui’s is the archetypal to beryllium investigated by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office, oregon PNAT.

According to Zelie Heran, ineligible caput of the antiracism watchdog SOS Racisme, the opening of a coercion probe means much resources and a perchance fast-tracked trial. She questioned wherefore the PNAT had not been activated successful different akin and caller cases.

“While we tin surely commend the [PNAT] for taking up this lawsuit due to the fact that it is simply a lawsuit wherever determination is simply a tendency to disrupt nationalist bid and dispersed panic connected the portion of this idiosyncratic who encouraged others to termination foreigners, we tin inactive beryllium amazed and captious of the information that this is the archetypal clip [they] person taken up this benignant of case,” said Heran.

She suggested that French politicians, including Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, person allowed a hateful clime to fester.

Retailleau has antecedently repeated debunked claims astir being “flooded” by migrants and precocious introduced a instrumentality to prohibition headscarves from nationalist universities.

This “obsession with Islam and foreigners has translated into actions by the population”, including the snatching of headscarves from women’s heads and verbal abuse, Heran said.

Statistics shared with Al Jazeera enactment these claims.

In the archetypal 5 months of 2025, SOS Racisme documented a 44 percent summation successful calls to its anti-discrimination hotline compared with the aforesaid play a twelvemonth ago.

This emergence is adjacent sharper regarding anti-Arab and Islamophobic incidents, which person accrued by 68 percent twelvemonth connected year.

In immoderate incidents, callers person described harm to property, including astatine mosques. In much urgent cases, carnal unit has been reported.

In April, Aboubakar Cisse, a Malian antheral successful his aboriginal twenties, was stabbed 57 times arsenic helium prepared his mosque for supplication successful La Grand-Combe, besides successful confederate France.

Though the attacker allegedly voiced a connection deemed incredibly violative to Muslims arsenic helium killed Cisse, the transgression is not being investigated arsenic an enactment of coercion but arsenic a race-based assassination.

The sidesplitting of Cisse followed the August 2024 execution of Djamel Bendjaballah, a Tunisian antheral who was tally implicit by the operator of an SUV successful a transgression his household has tried, unsuccessfully, to suffice arsenic a hatred crime. The fishy was a subordinate of a far-right survivalist radical and the ex-husband of Bendjaballah’s partner.

On Wednesday, the assemblage of Hichem Miraoui was returned to Tunisia – tragically reuniting him with his ailing mother.

Mouna Miraoui hopes that his decease volition beryllium a catalyst for change. She wears a headscarf and said that she nary longer feels harmless successful France.

“I get the feeling that there’s a generalised hatred that’s building,” she told Al Jazeera. “We expect justness to beryllium done. We expect this man’s condemnation to acceptable an illustration for everyone, truthful that radical don’t deliberation this is mean and trivialise it.”

Heran, astatine SOS Racisme, said, “All we tin bash is telephone for consciousness of the urgency for antiracist rhetoric and the implementation of policies to curb this improvement connected the portion of politicians, the media and citizens.”