French Senate President Gerard Larcher (5thL), President of the French National Assembly Yael Braun-Pivet (4thL), surrounded by French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne (2ndR), France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy (3rdL) and France's former President Francois Hollande (R) sing the French national anthem as they stand behind a banner which reads as "For The Republic, Against anti-Semistism" during a march against anti-semitism in Paris, on November 12, 2023. - Tens of thousands are expected to march Sunday in Paris against anti-Semitism amid bickering by political parties over who should take part and a surge in anti-Semitic incidents across France. Tensions have been rising in the French capital, home to large Jewish and Muslim communities, in the wake of the October 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by a month of Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip. France has recorded nearly 1250 anti-Semitic acts since the attack. National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet and Gerard Larcher, the Senate speaker, called on November 7 for a "general mobilisation" at the march against the upsurge in anti-Semitism. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)
French Senate President Gerard Larcher (5thL), President of the French National Assembly Yael Braun-Pivet (4thL), surrounded by French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne (2ndR), France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy (3rdL) and France's former President Francois Hollande (R) sing the French national anthem as they stand behind a banner which reads as "For The Republic, Against anti-Semistism" during a march against anti-semitism in Paris, on November 12, 2023. - Tens of thousands are expected to march Sunday in Paris against anti-Semitism amid bickering by political parties over who should take part and a surge in anti-Semitic incidents across France. Tensions have been rising in the French capital, home to large Jewish and Muslim communities, in the wake of the October 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by a month of Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip. France has recorded nearly 1250 anti-Semitic acts since the attack. National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet and Gerard Larcher, the Senate speaker, called on November 7 for a "general mobilisation" at the march against the upsurge in anti-Semitism. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)
French Senate President Gerard Larcher (5thL), President of the French National Assembly Yael Braun-Pivet (4thL), surrounded by French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne (2ndR), France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy (3rdL) and France’s former President Francois Hollande (R) sing the French national anthem as they stand behind a banner which reads as “For The Republic, Against anti-Semistism” during a march against anti-semitism in Paris, on November 12, 2023. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)
France, where over 1,500 anti-Semitic acts and comments have been recorded since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, has slapped an 18-month jail term on a pensioner for anti-Jewish graffiti.
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The 62-year-old man was found guilty Friday by a Strasbourg court of inciting racial hatred in the eastern city near the German border.
Strasbourg has one of France’s biggest Jewish communities.
“It’s an exemplary decision … (to punish) hate messages,” said lawyer Raphael Nisand, who represented the city’s tram company whose property was defaced.
The man was also fined 1,500 euros (about $1,100).
The graffiti, which also appeared elsewhere in Strasbourg’s working-class Hautepierre district, were often misspelt but said the same thing — “Death to Jews” and “US, Israel = Nazis”, according to Nisand.
The Alsace region where Strasbourg is located was effectively annexed from France by Nazi Germany during World War II, with several thousand of its Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
Today, some 20,000 Jews live in Strasbourg or the surrounding Bas-Rhin department.
Over 180,000 people turned out across France on Sunday according to police figures, to join marches against anti-Semitism.
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