Dozens of Stars of David were graffitied on buildings around Paris Tuesday night, sparking police to open an investigation, The Guardian reports.
These come in addition to stars that have been popping up around suburbs of the city since the attack on Israel on October 7. They are thought to be antisemitic and a threat to Jews.
i24 News reports that many of these buildings are homes and residential buildings.
The Prime Minister of France, Elisabeth Borne, said the stars were “despicable” and would not go unpunished. “The situation in the Middle East does not justify antisemitism … my government is determined to wage a merciless fight against it,” she told the National Assembly. “It is the duty of the republic to protect all the Jews of France.”
The stars appeared in the suburbs Vanves, Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aubervilliers, and in the nearby town of Saint-Ouen where the graffiti was accompanied by writing such as “Palestine will overcome” over the past weekend. Additionally, the mayor of Petit-Quevilly, another town north of Paris told AFP she filed a complaint after symbols including swastikas were found in her region last week.
There have been 857 total registered markings and 425 arrests in connection with antisemitic incidents in France since October 7.
“That’s as many acts of antisemitism in three weeks as there have been so far this year,” the interior minister Gerald Darmanin said Tuesday. Speaking on the investigations opened he promised Jewish communities in France “we will protect you, absolutely, completely, day and night.”
The mayor of Aubervilliers, Karine Franclet, condemned the graffiti as being “in total contradiction with the fundamental values that we hold, including tolerance, equality and mutual respect, particularly in the current context”, while the mayor of Saint-Ouen, Karim Bouamrane, said the perpetrators must be punished by the courts “with the greatest severity”.
France’s government delegate on antisemitism and racism, Olivier Klein, stated on the France Inter radio Wednesday: “Antisemitic and racist attacks have a link to the current news, but if there’s a resurgence it’s because this was present, there was a breeding ground … Unfortunately, our country, like others, has this capacity to awaken old demons.”
A union called the Jewish Students of France likened the graffiti to the yellow stars Jews were made to wear by Nazis during the holocaust. Its president, Samuel Lejoyeux said: “This act of marking recalls the processes of the 1930s and the second world war which led to the extermination of millions of Jews. The people who did this clearly wanted to terrify.”
