French cemetery desecrated by swastikas, but not in the Jewish quarter

• Date: 29 December 2020
• Author: SARAH CHEMLA
• Published date: 29 December 2020

The incident took place on the night from Sunday to Monday, but nothing was reported in the Jewish cemetery located next to the city's main Christian one, according to the Fontainebleau prosecutor's office.

"Sixty-seven old or more recent gravestones were vandalized with swastikas in pink, white and silver," Fontainebleau's mayor Frederic Valletoux told AFP, sharing pictures of the said graves on Twitter. An investigation was open for "degradation of graves".

Strange inscriptions such as "Biobananas" and "Charles" were also tagged on the graves but "no antisemitic inscriptions", said Valletoux on Twitter.

The city council announced that a complaint will be filed by the city hall. "No claim and no spray paint were found on the spot," said the prosecution.

Paris' deputy mayor, Audrey Pulvar, on the other hand, condemned on social media "an antisemitic act that belongs nowhere," creating the polemic on social media as some called her a '"hypocrite," adding that "these are Christian graves but that's okay, we are used to counting less than all the other minorities," the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles reported.

The antisemitic character of the incident was not established, given the inscriptions were only found on Christians' graves.

However, the symbolism of the swastikas, as well as the likely link between the words "Biobananas" and "Charles" to respectively "Shoananas" - the...