by Indalecio Alvarez
PARIS, Aug 25 (AFP) - Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom on Wednesday urged tougher punishment for the perpetrators of anti-Semitic acts as he made an emotional visit to a Paris Jewish center torched by arsonists last weekend.
"When you are facing a phenomenon like that, you should be more tough," Shalom told AFP in an interview after a 15-minute tour of the gutted ruins of the Jewish center in eastern Paris.
"There have to be tough laws," Shalom insisted on the second day of his impromptu visit to France.
"If the punishment is a very tough one, it should prevent others from even thinking about carrying out more attacks against Jews, Muslims or Christians," he added.
Shalom reiterated his support for the French government's efforts to curb a troubling rise in the number of anti-Semitic attacks, saying he was "encouraged by the determination of President (Jacques) Chirac and French ministers".
"I don't want to tell the French authorities what to do," he said, but noted nevertheless that the two countries could offer each other advice as they "share the same values of democracy, human rights, rule of law and freedom".
He said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was only a "small part of the problem" with respect to the rise in the number of anti-Jewish attacks in France, saying: "The main problem is racism and anti-Semitism."
Shalom's trip was the first by a high-level Israeli official to France since Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last month urged French Jews to flee "the wildest anti-Semitism", a call that prompted a sharp rebuke from Chirac.
Sharon later toned down the rhetoric, praising Chirac's efforts to combat anti-Jewish feeling in France, saying he hoped the "example will be followed by other countries".
The Israeli foreign minister met Tuesday with his French counterpart Michel Barnier, with whom he discussed both the worrying wave of anti-Semitic attacks and the Middle East peace process, and Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin.
He was due to meet with Jewish leaders in Paris on Wednesday before heading back to Israel on Thursday.
After walking through the gutted ruins of the Jewish center in eastern Paris, Shalom told reporters: "It's not something you want to see. The smell is not something you want to smell."
The arsonists, who have not yet been apprehended, scrawled swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans inside the building.
The attack on the Jewish center led Chirac's center-right government, which has struggled to curb the rise in anti-Semitic acts, to declare a nationwide war on all forms of racism on Monday.
De Villepin said Tuesday that 160 physical anti-Semitic acts -- assaults against individuals or property damage -- had been committed in the first seven months of 2004, as compared with 75 such attacks in the same period last year.
France is home to Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim communities, estimated at 600,000 and five million respectively out of a total population of 60 million.