France is investigating whether graffiti painted on the wall of Paris’s Holocaust memorial last week was a destabilisation operation coordinated from Russia, French media have reported.

On the morning of 14 May, about 20 spray-painted red hand symbols were discovered on one of the memorial’s exterior walls, which is dedicated to honouring individuals who saved Jews from persecution during the Nazi occupation of France.

The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, immediately reported the graffiti to prosecutors as a possible antisemitic act. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, condemned the act as one of “odious antisemitism”. He wrote on X that this vandalism damaged “the memory” of those who saved Jews during the Holocaust and of the victims.

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