On Tuesday, 107 graves were reported to have been defiled in the commune of Westhoffen. A similar incident happened earlier in the day in the village of Schaffhouse-sur-Zorn, in the same department.
"Jews are a part of France and create it. Those who attack them, their graves, are not worthy of the ideas we share in France. Antisemitism is a crime, and we will fight it, in Westhoffen, and everywhere else, until our dead can rest in peace," Macron tweeted.
Les Juifs sont et font la France. Ceux qui s'attaquent à eux, jusque dans leurs tombes, ne sont pas dignes de l’idée que nous avons de la France. L'antisémitisme est un crime et nous le combattrons, à Westhoffen comme partout, jusqu'à ce que nos morts puissent dormir en paix.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) December 3, 2019
On Tuesday, French media reported that over 100 graves in a Jewish cemetery near the city of Strasbourg in eastern France were vandalized, covered with swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti, following a similar attack in the neighboring village of Schaffhouse-sur-Zorn.
#France Des "croix gammées" ont été découvertes mardi sur 107 tombes du cimetière juif de #Westhoffen, non loin de #Strasbourg, semant la "consternation" en #Alsace, une région déjà marquée par une série d'actes similaires ces derniers temps. pic.twitter.com/daymC1rYuI
— FRANCE-INFO-GEN (@gen_france) December 3, 2019
Macron visited an affected cemetery to evaluate the damage and vowed to mitigate hate speech by educating schoolchildren against racism.
In recent years, France has experienced an alarming rise in antisemitic incidents.