Anti-Semitic memorial graffiti shock French minister

The words “lies,” “Zionism,” and “interests” were inscribed in red paint.

By JOSEPH BYRON - EUROPEAN JEWISH PRESS - SPECIAL
anti israel graffiti 311 (photo credit: (European Jewish Press))
anti israel graffiti 311
(photo credit: (European Jewish Press))
PARIS – French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux expressed “horror and sadness” over the discovery last week of anti-Jewish and negationist inscriptions at a memorial for the deportation and resistance in Marmande, in the Lot-et- Garonne region, southwest of France.
The words “lies,” “Zionism,” “interests” and the dollar sign, “$”, were inscribed in red paint on the monument, which bears the names of Nazi concentration camps, said Gerard Gouzes, Socialist Mayor of Marmande.
“Marmande is shocked,” the mayor said. “It is undoubtedly the act of a Holocaust denier, someone who knows very well what he did.”
According to the interior minister, the authors of the tags had “clearly targeted the memory of the deportees and the Jewish community of France.”
As minister of worship – combined today with the position of interior minister – “I am more than ever determined to fight against all obscurantism, all racism and all forms of extremism,” Hortefeux said.
Wednesday’s incident followed several other anti- Semitic acts around the country. Three weeks ago, dozens of Jewish graves were vandalized in eastern France.
Vandals smashed or overturned 27 gravestones at the Jewish cemetery of Wolfisheim, near Strasbourg.
More recently, anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas were discovered on the walls of the Etz Haim synagogue in Melun, central France, and on the frontages and windows of a dozen kosher stores in Paris.
France is home to Western Europe’s largest Jewish community.
Around 600,000 Jews live in the country.