Tombstones and a Holocaust memorial in a Jewish cemetery outside Strasbourg, France, were vandalised with anti-Semitic graffiti earlier this week, reports CNN.
The vandalism was discovered Tuesday at the Herrlisheim Jewish cemetery hours before a gunman opened fire in Strasbourg's Christmas market, killing four people and wounding 12. Police killed the suspect Thursday evening, authorities said.
It's not known whether the vandalism and the attack were connected.
Thirty-seven tombstones were desecrated with spray-painted Nazi swastikas and other graffiti.
French interior minister Christophe Castaner attended a ceremony Friday at the cemetery and decried the vandalism.
"When a place of recollection is desecrated, the whole republic is defiled," he tweeted Friday. "I came this morning to support the Jewish community and all the inhabitants of Herrlisheim after the anti-Semitic and xenophobic degradations committed in this Israelite cemetery.
"Everything is being done to identify and catch the authors of this profane act. I have full confidence in the police, which is conducting forensic investigations. These heinous acts cannot remain unpunished."