The black mayor of the French capital's largest suburb on Thursday expressed outrage after a banner appeared on its cathedral calling for the mass deportation of non-white people.
The working-class city of Saint-Denis is home to many people from immigrant backgrounds, and new mayor Bally Bagayoko and his staff had been the target of racist remarks ever since his election in March.
On Thursday morning, a banner was thrown down the facade of the city's famed basilica, where French kings and queens are buried, bearing the word "remigration", a far-right concept calling for the mass deportation of people of foreign origin.
"We reaffirm our heritage just steps away from the tomb of Charles Martel, the man who, in 732, put an end to the Arab-Muslim invasion of our lands," a spokesman for a far-right group called "Objective Remigration" said in a video on social media.
Frankish leader Charles Martel, who is buried inside the Saint-Denis Basilica, is credited with having prevented an Arab conquest of western Europe.
