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A ceremony has taken place at a Jewish cemetery in eastern France where 37 gravestones and a monument to Holocaust victims were sprayed with anti-Semitic graffiti.
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France’s Interior Minister Christophe Castaner was among the participants at the Herrlisheim cemetery, near the French city of Strasbourg, for Friday’s event to denounce anti-Semitism and remember Holocaust victims.
The desecration that included Nazi swastikas was discovered on Tuesday, hours before an attacker sprayed gunfire near the Christmas market of Strasbourg, killing three people.
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Strasbourg's Grand Rabbi Harold-Abraham Weill inspects graves desecrated with swastikas in the Jewish cemetery of Herrlisheim, north of Strasbourg, France, Dec. 14, 2018.
REUTERS/Vincent Kessler
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Graves desecrated with swastikas are seen in the Jewish cemetery of Herrlisheim, north of Strasbourg, France, Dec. 14, 2018.
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French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner walks near a grave desecrated with a swastika in the Jewish cemetery of Herrlisheim, north of Strasbourg, France, Dec. 14, 2018.
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Graves desecrated with swastikas are seen in the Jewish cemetery of Herrlisheim, north of Strasbourg, France, Dec. 14, 2018.
REUTERS/Vincent Kessler
The French government sounded the alarm last month over a sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts this year in France, which is home to Europe’s largest Jewish population.
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Police registered a 69 per cent rise in the number of anti-Semitic acts in the first nine months of 2018, compared with the same period last year.