Via BBC:
Nearly 100 graves at a Jewish cemetery in eastern France have been desecrated with swastikas.
The damage was discovered on Tuesday, ahead of nationwide marches against a rise in anti-Semitic attacks.
French President Emmanuel Macron visited the cemetery, in a village near Strasbourg, telling community leaders: “It’s important for me to be here with you today.”
France has the biggest Jewish community in Europe, about 550,000 people.
What happened?
The damage was discovered on Tuesday in Quatzenheim, a village in Alsace close to France’s border with Germany. Nazi symbols and anti-Semitic slogans were spray-painted on the graves.
One tombstone was defaced with the words “Elsässischen Schwarzen Wolfe” (“Black Alsatian Wolves”), the name of a militant far-right group active in the 1970s and 1980s.[…]
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner has warned that anti-Semitism is “spreading like poison” in the country.
Statistics published last week showed a rise of 74% in the number of anti-Semitic attacks in France, from 311 in 2017 to 541 in 2018.
Several high-profile recent incidents have brought the issue of anti-Semitism into focus in France.
Post-boxes featuring a Holocaust survivor’s portrait were daubed with swastikas, while a Jewish bakery in central Paris had the German word for Jews (“Juden”) spray-painted on its window.
Last weekend, police also stepped in to protect the philosopher, Alain Finkielkraut, after he was reportedly bombarded with anti-Jewish taunts by a group of “yellow vest” protesters in Paris.