Swastikas, Nazi-style “SS” logos and anti-Semitic slogans were daubed on the outer walls of a synagogue in central Marseille on Sunday night.
Police say the graffiti were signed “Marseille Skinheads.”
Racist Skinheads, who have proliferated in the last three years in far-flung corners of the world, are shaven-headed youths who work in gangs, affecting Nazi-like regalia, spouting extreme right-wing rhetoric and often harassing foreigners and minorities.
But the police investigation so far has turned up few clues.
Vandals recently desecrated some 43 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in a small town near the German border in the province of Alsace. There, ornaments such as Stars of David were torn off. But no anti-Semitic graffiti were found at that site.
Local officials of Horbourg Wuhr, near Colmar, said the vandals might have been local hoodlums without any particular anti-Semitic leanings.
Several cemeteries, Jewish and Christian, have been desecrated in recent months, and some suspects have been arrested.
Most are youths who belong to no organized party or movement but have a bent for violence and notoriety.
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