New mosque ban in Padua after Paris attacks

Massimo Bitonci, a Northern League member who last year said crucifixes must be hung on the walls of all schools and offices across the Veneto city, said in a tweet on Friday: “No to new mosques”.

He added that controls on private establishments used for worship will also be tightened.

In a sign of solidarity with France over the shooting, in which 12 people died, a French flag has been hung outside the town hall.

There has been an anti-Muslim backlash in parts of Europe in the wake of the attacks in Paris.

A Swedish politician was reported to police on Friday after he wrote “the religion of peace shows its face” on his Facebook page, while a survey in Germany showed that a growing majority of Germans felt threatened by Islam.

In Austria, a mosque in a building used by the Vienna Islamic Centre was defaced by Islamophobic graffiti on Thursday.

Muslims make up Italy’s second-largest religious group but their faith still lacks official national recognition.

The country is home to 1.7 million Muslims and the country has over 700 mosques.

In January last year, a court in Lombardy ruled that urban planners must give space to non-Catholic groups, sparking a backlash from the Northern League, which branded the decision as “disgraceful judgement”.