France charges two over Nazi swastikas in Paris

France charged two people with justifying a crime against humanity over Nazi swastikas that were spray-painted in northwestern Paris, a judicial source said on Wednesday.

Published: 29 November 2023 16:08 CET

France charges two over Nazi swastikas in Paris

Photo by BERTRAND GUAY / AFP

The two were part of a group of 13 people who were detained on Saturday.

The suspects, who are in their 20s and early 30s, have been described as a mixture of ultra-right activists and hooligans.

France is on alert after the killing of a teenager this month inflamed political tensions in the country, with the hard-right describing the assault as “anti-white racism.”

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Seven of the suspects have been known to the authorities as ultra-right activists, and another three have already been involved in “similar acts” in the past, the public prosecutor’s office said.

They are suspected of having spray-painted Nazi swastikas on the ground in the French capital’s 17th district.

Apart from the swastikas, the group is suspected of spray-painting the inscription “KOB”, a reference to the notorious Kop of Boulogne, Paris Saint-Germain’s football ultras.

On Tuesday, the public prosecutor’s office said nine of the 13 people had been brought before an investigating judge.

A judicial source said authorities had filed charges against two people including public justification of a crime or misdemeanour.

The source did not provide further details but authorities earlier launched an investigation into various offences, including justification of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

According to the judicial source, six other people were indicted on charges that they refused to hand over pass codes to their phones.

The source said the eight people were placed under judicial supervision and banned from contacting each other and carrying weapons.

Last month, French prosecutors opened an investigation into dozens of Stars of David daubed on buildings around the city and its suburbs.

Prosectors in that case said that two Moldovans had been arrested and that the action may have been carried out at the “express demand” of an individual residing abroad.

Tensions had been rising in Paris, home to large Jewish and Muslim communities, amid the war between Israel and Hamas in the wake of the attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7th, which has been followed by Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.