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A criminal fire destroying a Jewish social center in Paris on Sunday, with anti-Semitic graffiti and swastikas found in inside fringes, aroused French government's indignation after a wave of anti-Jewish acts in the country.
The fire was set around 3:00 AM local time (0100 GMT) on Sunday, gutting about 100 square meters of the 300-square-meter Jewish center situated on the ground floor of a five-story residential building in center Paris.
Some 50 firemen of six fire stations arrived and extinguished the fire within an hour from the alarm call and there were no casualties, according to the firemen.
Besides swastikas in red ink, some anti-Semitic slogans read "Without Jews, we would be happy," according to the police.
President Jacques Chirac strongly condemned in a statement "the indescribable act," extending all his solidarity to the center's functionary and staff, as well as to all the Jewish community in France.
He also emphasized "the absolute determination of the state to find the perpetrators of these unacceptable acts so they are judged and sentenced as severely as possible."
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, after visiting the site on Sunday, declared that "France will be extremely severe against those who perpetrate anti-Semitism" and pledged that the perpetrators of these acts would risk maximum prison sentences of up to 20 years.
French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin asked the Prefecture Police of Paris to use all the necessary research means to identify the perpetrators of the act.
Bertrand Delanoe, mayor of Paris, who also visited the scene, expressed his "shock and horror," saying that the "Nazi and anti-Semitic inscriptions daubed around the center are revolting."
Paris Police Chief Jean-Paul Proust vowed to launch an inquiry to find those responsible and bring them before the courts.
In France from May, swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti were scrawled on at least 159 tombstones at Jewish cemeteries in Alsace in east France, neighboring to Germany.
The tombstones of about 60 graves in the Jewish cemetery of Lyon and a monument to the memory the Jewish died in World War II were smeared with swastika, Celtic cross and other inscriptions.
According to figures of the French Interior Ministry, the number of anti-Semitic acts committed in the first half of 2004 has soared, with 135 acts of physical violence against Jews.
(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2004)
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