Foreign couple caught spraying blue ‘Star of David’ on Paris wall

A couple has been arrested after being caught spraying a wall with a Star of David - a Jewish symbol - on a wall in Paris, days after dozens of similar graffiti tags appeared across the city.

The man, aged 33, and a woman, 29, both born in Moldova and living in France illegally, were arrested on Friday October 29, it has emerged.

They were arrested in connection with “damage aggravated by the fact that it was committed because of origin or religion”, said the public prosecutor.

However, the couple denied responsibility and said they were acting on the orders of a third party. The offence is normally punished by up to four years in jail and a €30,000 fine, but the couple will likely be deported if found guilty due to their irregular immigration status.

Despite the arrest, the public prosecutor believes that there are more people who have “not yet been identified” in connection with the spate of graffiti tagging of blue Stars of David that appeared on several buildings in and around Paris this week.

Around 60 blue Stars of David graffiti

Around 60 stars in blue - traditionally a symbol of Judaism and Israel - were stencilled in the 14th, 15th, and 10th arrondissements in Paris, as well as the suburbs of Vanves and Fontenay-aux-Roses (Hauts-de-Seine) and Aubervilliers and Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis).

Some of the stars were accompanied by pro-Palestine text but not all.

Dans de nombreuses rues du 15e arrondissement, des tags antisémites ont été réalisés pendant la nuit.

Nous condamnons avec la plus grande fermeté ces actes qui nous rappellent les heures les plus sombres de notre Histoire.

Nous déposons plainte immédiatement et espérons que… pic.twitter.com/BeQpzPLi2t

— Anthony Samama (@AnthonySamama) October 31, 2023

The public prosecutor has stopped short of condemning the stars as anti-Semitic or anti-Israel, however.

In a statement, it said: “[We do not know if the stars] were intended to insult the Jewish people or to claim that they belonged to them, particularly since they were painted with blue [rather than the yellow typically used by the Nazis to identify Jews negatively].”

The prosecutor has opened an investigation “in view of the geopolitical context and its impact on the population” within the context of the war between Hamas and Israel.

Anti-Semitic acts

Anti-Semitic tags have been found elsewhere and anti-Semitic acts are generally on the rise, police reports show.

On Tuesday this week (October 31), Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said that since the attack by Hamas on October 7, there had been 857 anti-Semitic attacks recorded in France, and 425 arrests.

Despite the public prosecutor’s reticence to define the graffiti in Paris, many political figures have come out to condemn the tags as anti-Semitic.

Speaking to the Assemblée Nationale on November 1, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said: “On behalf of the government, I condemn these despicable acts with absolute firmness…to attack someone because they are Jewish…is to attack the very soul of the Republic.

“It is the duty of the Republic to protect all the Jews of France…all those guilty of these acts must be questioned and condemned…nothing can be tolerated, justified or excused.”

The mayors of the arrondissements and towns affected condemned what they called “the unleashing of Jewish hatred”.

In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Jewish students’ association l'Union des étudiants juifs de France said: "Some people want to terrorise French Jews using the methods of the 1930s. They must be quickly found and severely punished.”

France has the third largest Jewish community in the world after Israel and the US, at an estimated 448,000 (or 0.7% of the population).

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