by Chantal Valery
LYON, France, Aug 10 (AFP) - French President Jacques Chirac on Tuesday pledged to punish vandals who desecrated 60 graves at a Jewish cemetery in Lyon, as his center-right government struggles to curb rising anti-Semitism.
"Let the profaners make no mistake: France vigorously and indignantly condemns these dishonorable acts," Chirac wrote in a letter to local Jewish community leader Marcel Dreyfus after Monday's incident.
"The country will not tolerate a spread of such acts on its territory," the French leader warned.
Vandals daubed swastikas, Celtic crosses and references to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in black paint late Monday on some 60 tombstones in the Lyon cemetery, as well as on a monument to Jews killed during World War II.
Two men seen at the scene were detained for questioning about the incident, the latest in a string of similar attacks on Jewish cemeteries in France, but state prosecutors said they were not believed to be directly involved.
"At the moment when we are preparing to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the allied landings in Provence and the victory over Nazi barbarity, this sordid, cowardly act is an insult to the memory of all the resistance fighters from Lyon and from France, to the memory of the Jewish community," Chirac said.
"We are actively looking for the perpetrators of this ignominious act. They will be punished to the full extent of the law," the president added.
Justice Minister Dominique Perben, on holiday in the area near Lyon in southeast France, was dispatched to the cemetery on Tuesday. He condemned what he called an "abominable act" and said the police investigation was ongoing.
"It's the French republic that is at stake here. The principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are at stake here, and that's why the government, on the president's orders, is particularly firm in this fight for liberty and respect for the rights of every citizen," he said.
Dreyfus told AFP that he had discussed the incident with Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin who described the attack as "odious" and "unacceptable".
The CRIF, an umbrella group representing Jewish organizations in France, called on civil society to react to the spate of attacks and recalled that Christian and Muslim cemeteries has also been desecrated in recent weeks.
Three graves in a Muslim area of a cemetery in Migennes, central France, were daubed with white swastikas at the weekend, police said Tuesday.
Last month, Chirac called for perpetrators of anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic acts to face tough punishment, and excluded racist crimes from his annual July 14 clemency for prisoners.
The number of racist and anti-Semitic acts committed in France soared in the first half of 2004, according to interior ministry statistics, with 135 physical acts carried out against Jews and 95 against other ethnic groups.
France is home to Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim communities, estimated at 600,000 and five million respectively. Some 35,000 Jews live in Lyon, making it the third-largest Jewish community in the country.
Many of the attacks against Jewish cemeteries have occurred in the eastern Alsace region near the border with Germany.