TEENAGERS DEFACE JEWISH GRAVES

This small Jewish cemetery contains some 400 graves. A municipal employee notified the gendarmes when he saw the overturned headstones. There were no anti-Semitic signs.

Before the two were arrested a couple of days following the discovery of their deeds, all French political leaders condemned the desecration of the cemetery. French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said he felt "outraged" by this "heinous action". Minister of Interior Dominique de Villepin personally called CRIF's President Roger Cukierman to assure him that "everything would be done to arrest the culprits." Two days later, the Minister of Interior called Cukierman to inform him of the arrest of the two teenagers.

CRIF expressed its emotion and its outrage following the desecration of the graves. "In the past months, repeated desecrations were perpetrated in the East of France. CRIF encourages the public authorities to pursue their active policy in this particular field."

In a related issue, acting on a proposition introduced by Dominique de Villepin, the French government decided in session to dissolve and outlaw Elsass Korps, a neo-Nazi splinter group. Created in 1993 by some fifty Alsatian (East of France) neo-Nazi skinheads, Elsass Korps or EK was involved in several cases of hooliganism and aggressions. EK is an affiliate of Blood and Honor, an international neo-Nazi network who gathers to commemorate Adolf Hitler. Dominique de Villepin stated that EK was promoting discrimination, hatred and violence.

The French Minister of Interior said last February that he was out to dissolve neo-Nazi groups, following a series of desecration of Jewish cemeteries in the East of France.