Star of David symbols may have been painted on Paris buildings "at the express request" of someone abroad, prosecutor says
A public prosecutor in France said Tuesday that there may have been foreign influence behind people painting graffiti in and around the French capital featuring the Jewish Star of David. Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said a couple from Moldova had been accused of stenciling the stars onto the front of several buildings.
A conversation that took place in Russian on a cell phone in the couple's possession was being considered as evidence of a possible motive. The pair were in police custody Tuesday, more than a week after the stars first appeared, and were facing possible deportation.
Beccuau said the investigation into the graffiti had revealed a link between the Moldovans and another couple accused of painting similar graffiti a week earlier. Surveillance video showed that man and woman stenciling the stars onto a wall while a third person took photographs of the graffiti. The prosecutor said that couple left France the day after the graffiti appeared.
"It could not be ruled out" that the stars were daubed on walls "at the express request of someone living abroad," Beccuau said Tuesday, adding that the investigation would continue to try to identify the perpetrators and to analyze the motive behind the operation.
Investigators have said they aren't convinced the graffiti can be classed as antisemitic, but they are concerned about possible Russian meddling at such a sensitive time.
Prosecutors opened the investigation last week after blue Stars of David were found spray-painted on several buildings in Paris — incidents described by the French capital's mayor at the time as "despicable acts" of antisemitism.
"Antisemitic tags were discovered in Paris. Faced with these despicable acts, we contacted the public prosecutor to identify, prosecute and sentence the perpetrators. Antisemitism has no place in our Republic," Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a statement posted on social media Tuesday.
A spate of antisemitic acts have occurred across Europe as tensions rise on the continent amid the war between Israel and Hamas.
French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne said Tuesday that "demonstrations of hatred against Jews have intensified in our country. Antisemitism is cowardice, hatred of others."
"Those guilty of these acts must be condemned," she added.
Where were the Stars of David found in Paris?
The symbols were stenciled in blue along the walls of multiple buildings in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.
In a statement on Oct. 31, prosecutors said they didn't know "whether these tags were intended to insult the Jewish people or to claim Jewish membership, particularly as they involved the blue star" rather than yellow, but felt it was necessary to investigate "in view of the geopolitical context and its impact on the population."
"It has … not been established that this star has an antisemitic connotation, but this cannot be dismissed out of hand," the statement said.
During World War II, Nazi Germany and some European countries that it occupied forced Jewish people to wear yellow stars on their clothing as part of a program of persecution that culminated in the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered in an act of mass genocide.
Since Hamas militants' bloody Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, more than 800 incidents of antisemitism have been recorded in France alone, government spokesperson Olivier Veran said last week.