French Jewish Cemetery Defaced With Nazi Swastikas (PHOTOS)

Several tombstones were sprayed with anti-Semitic graffiti, including Nazi swastikas at a Jewish cemetery on Tuesday in eastern France, The Times of Israel reported.

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner took part in a Friday event to denounce anti-Semitism at the Herrlisheim cemetery in eastern France, where 37 gravestones and a monument to Holocaust victims had been desecrated with swastikas earlier this week.

Despicable! Wasn't going to share these pix but this kind of hatred must be called out. It's 2018 and it's heartbreaking to see this is still happening.

A Strasbourg Rabbi inspects graves desecrated with swastikas in the Jewish cemetery of Herrlisheim, France — via @reuters pic.twitter.com/pM8XwaGgjO

— Derek Momodu (@DelMody) 14 December 2018

France has seen a 69-percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the past nine months, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said last month.

He said that the government would “experiment with a network of investigators and magistrates specially trained in the fight against acts of hate”, adding a national team would be mobilised to intervene in schools to help teachers dealing with anti-Semitism.

In recent years, France has witnessed several cases of violence against Jews: in March 2018, 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll was murdered in her apartment in Paris.

Several days after the tragic incident, someone broke into the office of the French Jewish Students Union at the University of Paris and sprayed anti-Semitic graffiti there.