Moroccan artist Mounir Fatmi was taking part in the month long “Printemps de Septembre” art festival in Toulouse. His artwork: Projections of stylised calligraphy showed extracts from the Koran and “Hadiths” (sayings) of the Prophet Mohammed.

Fatmi had planned the projections be cordoned off, to stop people walking over them, however a text was projected onto the cities busy 16th century Pont Neuf bridge by mistake.  Walking on text from the Koran is considered blasphemous by Muslims.

Quickly young Muslim’s from the city gathered to stop pedestrians walking on the writings, one woman was slapped by protestors. Only when Imans from the local Mosque arrived to calm the crowd, did tensions ease and the art exhibit stopped. In response to the incident Fatmi said that the piece, called “Technologia”, was owned by the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar. “When it was shown there for the first time, just a few kilometres from Saudi Arabia, no one was shocked…That people were shocked in Toulouse is astonishing. I just don’t get it.”

Toulouse was the location of a shooting by a young Islamic extremist earlier this year. The incident left seven people dead at a Jewish school in the city.

For more information see France 24