The two unnamed men, aged 20 and 22, were handed suspended sentences of three months and six months respectively after they were found guilty of “inciting hatred on religious grounds”, an offence which carries a maximum penalty of five years.
The pair have also been ordered to pay the two plaintiffs – mosque officials and the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) – 2,000 euros (£1,794) in damages each.
They will also have to pay €1,000 (£895) to cover the plaintiffs’ legal fees.
The men, who are from Pont-de-Beauvoisin, a small town in southwest France, near Lyon, told judges that they deeply regretted offending the local Muslim community, adding that the decision to hang the severed pig’s head on the door of their local prayer hall had been nothing more than a “bad joke” and that they had been “under the influence of alcohol”.
The pair told the court they had been driving home from a “drunken party” along with three other friends when they crashed their car into a wild boar, killing him on the spot.
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They then hauled the dead creature into the car, went home, cut him up and froze the meat, at which point one of the men suggested dumping the pig’s severed head outside the local mosque.
The men packed up the head and drove to the mosque – but their three friends refused to take part in the prank and went home.
Pont-de-Beauvoisin is a village of some 3,500 inhabitants, and it took local police less than 48 hours to find out who had tied the pig’s head to the mosque door.