Thousands protest in France against anti-Jewish attacks

Tens of thousands of people across France have joined protests against a recent rise in anti-Semitism just as nearly 100 graves at a Jewish cemetery were desecrated with swastikas.

The protests were organized by 14 political parties and were expected to take place in as many as 60 cities, the BBC reported.

The damage was discovered on Tuesday, ahead of dozens of rallies against anti-Semitism scheduled to take place across the nation, which is home to the world's largest Jewish population outside of Israel and the United States.

One tombstone in Quatzenheim, a village in Alsace close to France's border with Germany, was defaced with the words "Elsassischen Schwarzen Wolfe" ("Black Alsatian Wolves"), on Tuesday. Nazi symbols and anti-Semitic slogans were spray-painted on the graves.

Following the overnight desecration, President Emmanuel Macron visited the cemetery, near Strasbourg, where he told community leaders: "It's important for me to be here with you today."

"We shall act, we shall pass laws, we shall punish," Macron told Jewish leaders after he toured through the graveyard.

"Those who did this are not worthy of the Republic," he said, placing a white rose on a tombstone commemorating Jews deported to Germany during World War II.

Macron later visited the national Holocaust memorial in Paris with the heads of the Senate and National Assembly.

It was the second recent case of extensive cemetery desecration in the region. In December, nearly 40 graves as well as a monument to Holocaust victims were vandalised in Herrlisheim, about a half-hour drive from Quatzenheim.

"I call on the leaders of France and Europe to take a strong stand against anti-Semitism. It is a plague that endangers everyone, not just us," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said when he condemned the attack in a video statement.

The Guardian reported that in response to the recent rise in anti-Semitic attacks, political leaders from all parties in France, including former presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, gathered in Paris to decry anti-Semitic acts with one common slogan: "Enough!"

The French government has warned anti-Semitism is "spreading like poison". French media have noted a rise in anti-Semitic attacks, and graffiti on the margins of the gilets jaunes protests, which began in November as a fuel tax revolt and turned into a wider anti-government, anti-elite movement.

Contact the writer at yandongjie@chinadaily.com.cn