With the war between Hamas and Israel, anti-Semitism is currently a little more visible in France. A 33-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman, born in Moldova, were arrested last Friday for having sprayed a Star of David on a wall in the 10th arrondissement of Paris and placed in administrative detention, the prosecution said on Wednesday, confirming information from BFMTV.
The couple was arrested for “degradation aggravated by the fact that it was committed because of origin or religion,” said the prosecution. The couple had been reported by a local resident who saw the man and woman “tagging a blue star”, which was “erased the same day”. The couple for their part “declared having committed this offense on the orders of a third party”.
Towards an “expulsion from the territory”
Both in an irregular situation, they were taken to the administrative detention center, according to the prosecution. The legal proceedings were therefore closed due to a “sanction of another nature”, that is to say “their expulsion from the territory”, he explained.
Furthermore, the prosecution indicated that “the authors of the multiple tags observed on Tuesday (had) not yet been identified”. Around sixty Stars of David, symbol of the Jewish religion and the State of Israel, were drawn with a blue stencil on several building facades in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.
An investigation was opened for “degradation of the property of others aggravated by the circumstance that it was committed due to origin, race, ethnicity or religion” and entrusted to the Paris Territorial Security. The prosecution specified that it did not know whether these tags “are intended to insult the Jewish people or to claim belonging to it, in particular since it is the blue star” and not the yellow one, while considering it necessary to investigate, “with regard to the geopolitical context and its impact within the population”.
Anti-Semitic tags have been discovered elsewhere in Paris and in other cities in France. Since October 7, the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, “857 anti-Semitic acts” have been recorded in France and “425” people have been arrested, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Tuesday.