A French court has slapped an 18-month jail term on a pensioner for anti-Jewish graffiti. The 62-year-old man was found guilty on Friday, November 17, by a Strasbourg court of inciting racial hatred in the eastern city near the German border. Strasbourg has one of France’s biggest Jewish communities.
“It’s an exemplary decision … [to punish] hate messages,” said lawyer Raphaël Nisand, who represented the city’s tram company, whose property was defaced. The man was also fined €1,500 euros.
The graffiti, which also appeared elsewhere in Strasbourg’s working-class Hautepierre district, were often misspelled but said the same thing – “Death to Jews” and “US, Israel = Nazis,” according to Nisand.
