On Might 31, a Saturday, Hichem Miraoui was at his dwelling in southeastern France on a video name along with his sister Hanen, who lives close by, and his mom in Tunisia.
It was late morning in Puget-sur-Argens, his village close to the French Riviera.
All of a sudden, Hanen heard him exclaim. The telephone then dropped to the ground and the road went silent.
Two hours later, Mouna Miraoui, his cousin, was on the Draguignan police station a number of kilometres north, figuring out his physique.
Miraoui had been shot 5 instances and killed in what French investigators – in a primary – are figuring out as a presumably racially motivated act of home terrorism.
“It’s a dwelling hell, it’s insufferable,” Mouna informed Al Jazeera by telephone. “It was a shock for everybody. His sister fainted. Think about if that day I had been invited to his home for dinner or a drink. I’ve younger youngsters, what would have occurred then?”
French investigators have opened a terrorism investigation within the homicide case wherein one other sufferer was injured. A person recognized as Christophe Belgembe has been arrested.
The suspect frequently reposted content material from France’s far-right Nationwide Rally occasion. He has admitted to capturing Miraoui however pleaded not responsible to the racially motivated nature of the crime.
In a number of movies uploaded to Fb, which have since been deleted, the suspect appeared to have congratulated himself for “eliminating 2-3 items of junk”, the French information website 20 Minutes reported. In accordance with one in every of Miraoui’s sisters, Belgembe was well-known amongst residents for his xenophobic views, specifically a “hatred of Arabs”.
Members of the family have informed varied media retailers that Miraoui, who was in his forties, had felt more and more threatened by Belgembe, the authorized proprietor of a number of weapons as a member of a capturing sports activities membership, within the days and weeks main as much as the alleged homicide.
A hairdresser who was near his 5 sisters, Miraoui had been planning to return to Tunisia to go to his sick mom for the primary time in eight years.
The alleged homicide led to protests throughout France and dropped at gentle what antiracism teams are calling an “ambient local weather” of anti-Arab hate and xenophobia.
Between January and March of 2025, 79 Islamophobic hate crimes occurred throughout France, a rise of greater than 70 % related to that very same interval in 2024, in line with the newest statistics from France’s inside minister.
On Sunday, a number of thousand individuals gathered within the southern French metropolis of Marseille and Miraoui’s hometown to protest in opposition to rising hate crimes, elevating indicators studying “racism has killed once more” and “relaxation in peace, Hichem”.
“Hichem’s demise is the fruit of an more and more hardline environment that has been rising for a number of months and years and that units in a bit extra on daily basis,” the household’s lawyer, Mourad Battikh, stated in an announcement.
Over the previous yr, three males have been killed in what seem like racially motivated hate crimes however Miraoui’s is the primary to be investigated by the Nationwide Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Workplace, or PNAT.
In accordance with Zelie Heran, authorized head of the antiracism watchdog SOS Racisme, the opening of a terrorism investigation means extra sources and a probably fast-tracked trial. She questioned why the PNAT had not been activated in different comparable and up to date instances.
“Whereas we will actually commend the [PNAT] for taking over this case as a result of it’s a case the place there’s a need to disrupt public order and unfold terror on the a part of this one who inspired others to kill foreigners, we will nonetheless be shocked and demanding of the truth that that is the primary time [they] have taken up the sort of case,” stated Heran.
She instructed that French politicians, together with Inside Minister Bruno Retailleau, have allowed a hateful local weather to fester.
Retailleau has beforehand repeated debunked claims about being “flooded” by migrants and not too long ago launched a legislation to ban headscarves from public universities.
This “obsession with Islam and foreigners has translated into actions by the inhabitants”, together with the snatching of headscarves from girls’s heads and verbal abuse, Heran stated.
Statistics shared with Al Jazeera assist these claims.
Within the first 5 months of 2025, SOS Racisme documented a 44 % improve in calls to its anti-discrimination hotline in contrast with the identical interval a yr in the past.
This rise is even sharper concerning anti-Arab and Islamophobic incidents, which have elevated by 68 % yr on yr.
In some incidents, callers have described harm to property, together with at mosques. In additional pressing instances, bodily violence has been reported.
In April, Aboubakar Cisse, a Malian man in his early twenties, was stabbed 57 instances as he ready his mosque for prayer in La Grand-Combe, additionally in southern France.
Although the attacker allegedly voiced an announcement deemed extremely offensive to Muslims as he killed Cisse, the crime shouldn’t be being investigated as an act of terrorism however as a race-based assassination.
The killing of Cisse adopted the August 2024 homicide of Djamel Bendjaballah, a Tunisian man who was run over by the motive force of an SUV in a criminal offense his household has tried, unsuccessfully, to qualify as a hate crime. The suspect was a member of a far-right survivalist group and the ex-husband of Bendjaballah’s associate.
On Wednesday, the physique of Hichem Miraoui was returned to Tunisia – tragically reuniting him along with his ailing mom.
Mouna Miraoui hopes that his demise shall be a catalyst for change. She wears a scarf and stated that she now not feels protected in France.
“I get the sensation that there’s a generalised hatred that’s constructing,” she informed Al Jazeera. “We anticipate justice to be carried out. We anticipate this man’s conviction to set an instance for everybody, so that individuals don’t assume that is regular and trivialise it.”
Heran, at SOS Racisme, stated, “All we will do is name for consciousness of the urgency for antiracist rhetoric and the implementation of insurance policies to curb this phenomenon on the a part of politicians, the media and residents.”
