A tree planted in a Paris suburb in memory of a young Jewish man who was tortured to death in 2006 has been chopped down, authorities said, confirming the latest in a series of anti-Semitic acts in France, reports FRANCE 24.
Ilan Halimi was kidnapped by a gang that demanded huge sums of money from his family, believing them to be rich because he was Jewish.
After being tortured for three weeks, the 23-year-old cellphone salesman was found dumped next to a railway in the southern suburb of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois. He died while being brought to hospital.
On Monday, municipal workers sent to prepare a memorial site for an annual remembrance ceremony this week discovered that a tree planted in his honour had been chopped down and a second one partly sawn through, local officials told AFP.
The police are investigating the incident, which the French government’s special representative on racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination, Frédéric Potier, described as “ignominious”.
It is the latest in a series of anti-Semitic acts and attacks that have raised fears of a new wave of anti-Jewish violence in a country that is home to Europe’s biggest Jewish population.
Anti-Semitic acts surged by 74 percent last year, from 311 in 2017 to 541 in 2018, French interior minister Christophe Castaner said Monday.
“Anti-Semitism is spreading like poison,” the visibly moved minister said near the spot where the tree was chopped down.
“By attacking... Ilan Halimi’s memory, it’s the Republic that’s being attacked,” he added, vowing that the government would take action.
In two separate incidents in the past two days, swastikas were drawn on Paris postboxes containing portraits of late Holocaust survivor Simone Veil and the word Juden (German for Jews) was sprayed on the window of a bagel bakery in the capital.