France: Anti-Muslim acts triple in 2015

Anti-Muslim acts in France tripled in 2015, with peaks in activity coming after two sets of deadly terror attacks that hit Paris last year, a government advisory commission said Monday.

A total of 429 anti-Muslim threats or hate crimes were reported last year, up from 133 in 2014, according to a report from France's National Human Rights Commission (CNCDH).

Two "peaks" in abuse came after extremists attacked satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and a subsequent assault in November that killed 130 people in Paris, said CNCDH president Christine Lazerges.

Overall, complaints of hate threats or crimes saw a "consequential increase" of just over 22 percent to 2,034 in 2015, the commission noted in its annual report on the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

Lazerges pointed out that the results include only reported crimes and that the true rates are much higher. "Day-to-day racism is much more subtle," she said.

The report added that anti-Muslim sentiments have increased following the country's deadly attacks, with several mayors calling on authorities to only admit Christian refugees from war torn Middle Eastern countries such as Syria and Iraq.

In the week following the Paris attack, France's National Observatory of Islamophobia recorded 32 anti-Muslim incidents, up from an average of five a week, while the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), reported 29 incidents during the same time.

France has a five-million-strong Muslim community, which is Europe's largest, and accounts for about eight percent of the country's total population.