Fontainebleau, a town situated about 60km south-east of Paris, is known for its royal palace that once served as a retreat for French kings starting from Louis VII through to Napoleon III.
Vandals have painted swastikas on dozens of tombstones in the Fontainebleau cemetery, according to Frédéric Valletoux, the town’s mayor, as quoted by AFP.
“Sixty-seven old or more recent gravestones were vandalised with swastikas in pink, white and silver,” Valletoux told AFP.
Besides swastikas, some of the defaced tombstones had words “Biobananas” and “Charles” inscribed on them.
#Fontainebleau. Je suis scandalisé et écœuré par la découverte, ce matin, de très nombreuses tombes profanées par des croix gammées. Des actes abjects et répugnants contre lesquels je vais déposer plainte. Jamais notre cimetière n'avait été la cible de tels crimes pic.twitter.com/Fm02RvWptm
— Frédéric Valletoux (@fredvalletoux) December 28, 2020
At the same time, the town’s Jewish cemetery placed right next to the main cemetery appeared to be untouched by the vandals.
Last year, Israeli Minister of Construction and Housing Major-General Yoav Galant called on the Jewish people in France to move to Israel to escape the rise of anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish cemeteries.
A local Rabbi did this, and before a week is out he’ll be using the incident to insist that new laws are passed to punish “anti-Semites”, who are now defined as anyone who exposes Jewish crime.