At Place de la République in Paris, among the passersby and scooters, demonstrators gathered around the tall bronze statue of Marianne, the iconic symbol of the French motto "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity), on Sunday, April 27. The small crowd had responded to the call of several organizations, including SOS Racisme, the League of Human Rights and the National Center for Monitoring the Far Right, chaired by radical left La France Insoumise (LFI) MP Thomas Portes, who called for a gathering in memory of Aboubakar Cissé, the 23-year-old Muslim brutally murdered two days earlier in the mosque of La Grand-Combe, a small village in southern France.

Like LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the president of SOS Racisme, Dominique Sopo, had come to express solidarity with the victim and the Muslim community. However, he was also accosted by a handful of demonstrators: "Don't use the term 'Islamophobia!'" they reproached him, visibly irritated.

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