France, where over 1,500 anti-Semitic acts and comments have been recorded since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict, has slapped an 18-month jail term on a pensioner for anti-Jewish graffiti, AFP reports.
The 62-year-old man was found guilty on Friday by a Strasbourg court of inciting racial hatred in the eastern city near the German border.
Strasbourg has one of France’s biggest Jewish communities.
“It’s an exemplary decision … (to punish) hate messages,” said lawyer Raphael Nisand, who represented the city’s tram company whose property was defaced. The man was also fined 1,500 euros (about $1,100).
The graffiti, which also appeared elsewhere in Strasbourg’s working class Hautepierre district, was often misspelt but said the same thing — “Death to Jews” and “US, Israel = Nazis”, according to Nisand.
