Islamophobia remains a controversial subject in France. Until recently, the term itself was not widely accepted in mainstream policy circles: last year, for instance, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said “I refuse to use that word,” arguing that it is “used to silence people.”

But the spread of anti-Muslim sentiment in French society has become impossible to deny. Today, Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front (FN) is at the top of polling for next year’s presidential election. Le Pen is well-known for her vitriolic denunciations of immigrants and Muslims, whom she accuses of “colonizing” France. Just last year she went on trial for incitement to racial hatred (which is a crime under the French legal code) after comparing Muslims praying in the streets of French cities to the Nazi occupation.

Over the past few months, hostility to France’s estimated five to six million Muslims (the exact number is unknown due to laws preventing officials from asking about religious affiliation) has reached a crescendo, fueled by the January and November 2015 terrorist attacks, and by this summer’s Bastille Day rampage in Nice.