PARIS, Aug 26 (AFP) - French authorities have noted 298 anti-Semitic acts in France between January 1 and August 20, the great majority of which remain unsolved, Interior Minister Dominique Perben told Grand Rabbi Joseph Sitruk Thursday.
Perben said there were 162 property attacks including racist graffiti and fires, 69 violations of laws banning racist comment in the press, and 67 physical or verbal attacks against people.
Perben said that in only 59 cases had the perpetrator been identified.
The government declared "war" on racism Monday, a day after arsonists torched a Jewish centre in Paris and scrawled swastikas inside.
The attack highlighted a four-year surge in anti-Jewish acts in France but Perben rejected an assertion by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France that the government was "lax" on anti-Semitic offenders.
He said state prosecutors had standing orders to systematically appeal sentences seen as too light in such cases, special appeals judges had been appointed and penalties for racist crimes had twice been increased.
Sitruk, the head rabbi for Paris, earlier said that his purpose in meeting Perben was to examine ways in which perpetrators of anti-Jewish acts are handed sentences "that are truly dissuasive."
The issuing of figures by the interior ministry was apparently a reaction to Sitruk's earlier statement that nobody had accurately judged the size of "this wave of aggression against the Jewish community."