Anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on tombs

Vandals have scrawled swastikas and ”SS” initials on Jewish tombs in eastern France, an anti-Semitic attack that President Jacques Chirac has called “intolerable”.

The inscriptions were discovered on 88 tombs in the Jewish cemetery in Brumath in the Bas-Rhin region, authorities said.

Chirac condemned “this intolerable act with the greatest firmness”, his office said in a statement.

The French leader also asked that the government “take all the measures necessary without delay to find, arrest and bring to justice the authors of this odious act”.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said orders had been issued to find the perpetrators. He called the attack ”scandalous”.