May 7



FRANCE:

Vandals Daub Swastikas on French Jewish Monument


Vandals daubed swastikas and ``Heil Hitler'' on a memorial in northeastern
France to French Jewish soldiers who fell in World War One, the latest in
a series of attacks on Jewish targets, police said.

They said the vandals struck overnight in the town of Fleury-devant-
Douaumont near Verdun, site of some of the bloodiest battles in the
1914-18 war.

President Jacques Chirac condemned what he called ``scandalous and
irresponsible'' actions. ``They offend the entire nation through the
memory of its sons of Jewish descent who died for France,'' he said in a
statement.

It comes days after a Jewish cemetery in the same region was desecrated
with swastikas and slogans written in German.

French Jewish groups note that May 8 is the anniversary of the 1945
surrender of Nazi Germany and often sees a rise in anti-Semitic vandalism
in France.

Hamlaoui Mekachera, a junior defense minister charged with army veteran
affairs, pledged authorities would deal severely with what he called the
``unspeakable desecration'' of the monument, a pillar etched with names of
the war dead.

France has a Jewish population of around half a million, the largest in
Europe.

(source: Reuters)