The Paris authorities launched an investigation after several Jewish sites across the capital were degraded with green painting.
Vandalism, discovered early Saturday morning, targeted the Shoah memorial, two synagogues and a Jewish restaurant in the city’s historic marsh district, as well as a third synagogue of the 20th arrondissement (District). An open paint box would have been found nearby, while the French media said that surveillance images of the holocaust memorial showed a person dressed in black spray paint overnight.
The photos of the Shoah Memorial show a painted painting a wall engraved with the names of the 76,000 men, women and children expelled from France between 1942 and 1944.
Aurelen Morissard / AP
The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that it had opened an investigation for “damage committed in the field of religion”, citing attacks against “three synagogues, a restaurant and the Shoah Memorial” from the night from Friday to Saturday.
The Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, expressed his “immense disgust” concerning acts of vandalism targeting the Jewish community Through a post on xformerly Twitter.
The acts become before the Jewish festival of Shavuot. The French Interior Ministry had already called for increased security around Jewish sites this weekend due to increased global tensions.
No suspects have been arrested and no group has claimed responsibility.
France has the third largest Jewish population in the world, behind Israel and the United States, according to the Jewish political research institute.