PARIS: A spate of anti-Semitic vandalism and graffiti in and around Paris at the weekend sparked widespread condemnation on Tuesday, stoking fresh concerns about an increase in hate crime against Jews.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told lawmakers that he shared their anger at the “loathsome” acts, urging people “to express their absolute rejection” of anti-Semitism. Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux suggested the vandalism could be blamed in part on the far-left and far-right activists who have infiltrated the weekly “yellow vest” protests. Demonstrators have gathered in Paris every Saturday since mid-November to denounce the government of President Emmanuel Macron, often leading to violent skirmishes with police.

The rise in anti-Semitic acts in France, however, predates the yellow vest movement and there was no evidence linking the latest incidents to the protests.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner had on Monday said anti-Semitism was “spreading like poison” as he visited a memorial site outside Paris for Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man who was tortured to death in 2006. There, a tree planted at the site where 23-year-old’s body was found had been chopped down, and a second tree was partly sawed through.

Also in recent days, the word “Juden” (German for Jew) was scrawled on the window of a Paris bagel bakery and swastikas were plastered over several post boxes bearing the image of former government minister and Holocaust survivor Simone Veil.

Other graffiti found on Monday at the headquarters of French daily Le Monde targeted President Emmanuel Macron, using anti-Semitic tropes to refer to his former job as a Rothschild investment banker.

“The social crisis France has seen since the emergence of the yellow vests has only encouraged such acts,” an editorial in Le Monde newspaper said on Tuesday. “To imagine that this old, hideous hate will abate once the social tensions ease is just wishful thinking.”

Castaner had on Monday said the number of anti-Jewish offences reported to the police surged 74 per cent last year, to 541 up from 311 in 2017, after two years of declines. Of that figure, 183 involved assaults and at least one murder — that of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who was killed in a savage attack at her home last March, believed to be motivated at least partly by anti-Semitism.

The increase came as other racist and xenophobic acts fell 4.2 per cent, and just 100 anti-Muslim cases were reported, the lowest number since 2010.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2019