Anti-Semitic acts hit France amid anti-government protests

According to French authorities, the total of registered anti-Semitic acts rose to 541 in 2018 from 311 in 2017, a rise of 74 percent.

A couple walks past a bagel shop, which was sprayed with the German word “Juden” on its front window last week, in Paris, Tuesday, Feb.12, 2019. These are just a few of the hundreds of anti-Semitic acts that have been committed in France, which is home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States, in recent months. According to French authorities, the total of registered anti-Semitic acts rose to 541 in 2018 from 311 in 2017, a rise of 74 percent. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Portraits of a Holocaust survivor stained with swastikas. A memorial in honor of a Jewish man vandalized. A bagel shop with the German word “Juden” sprayed on its front window. These are just a few of the hundreds of anti-Semitic acts that have been committed in France, which is home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States, in recent months.

According to French authorities, the total of registered anti-Semitic acts rose to 541 in 2018 from 311 in 2017, a rise of 74 percent.

A judicial official told The Associated Press on Tuesday that four investigations have been opened by Paris prosecutors after the latest incidents in the French capital last weekend. The person was not authorized to be publicly named because the investigations are ongoing.

“Anti-Semitism is spreading like a poison, like a venom,” Interior minister Christophe Castaner said when attending Monday night a ceremony at the memorial of Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man who was tortured to death back in 2006. Two trees planted at the scene where he was found dying in a Paris suburb have been vandalized.

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Anti-semitism on the rise in France

The French Interior minister visited a Paris suburb where a tree in memory of a young Jewish man who was tortured to death in 2006 had been chopped down.

“It’s rotting minds, it’s killing,” Castaner said, vowing that the government would fight anti-Semitism.

Castaner did not link the rise of incidents to any specific groups. But some members of France’s yellow vest anti-government movement are known for extremist views, and several anti-Semitic incidents have occurred amid the broad-based movement that started in November.