Unidentified individuals on Thursday lit fires inside dumpsters adjacent to a kosher shop in Paris where four Jews were murdered in 2015.
Valérie Pécresse, president of the Council of the Île-de-France region that surrounds the French capital, said that she was “outraged” by the fire and that it was an antisemitic incident. Police are investigating the case as an act of vandalism, but have not said they suspect an antisemitic motive.
The fire lit outside the Hyper Cacher store at about 3 a.m. was quickly extinguished and resulted in neither injury nor damage to the interior of the establishment, the Le Figaro newspaper reported. However, the fires blackened a side wall of the shop with soot, images from the area showed.
The facade of the shop, where commemorations are held annually on the anniversary of the 2015 murders, was not damaged in the fire.
In January 2015, a jihadist terrorist murdered four Jews at the Hyper Cacher days after his accomplices murdered 12 people at the office of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) issued a statement that did not say the incident was antisemitic, but did call it “yet another reminder of the persistent threats Jewish communities face.”
EJC is “deeply troubled by the arson attack on the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris, a site forever marked by the tragic 2015 hostage crisis,” the statement also said, adding that “authorities must ensure that those responsible are swiftly brought to justice.”
In her statement, Pécresse wrote she was “Outraged by the arson attack that targeted the Hyper Cache” and that she extends her “support to the entire team at the establishment and hope that the perpetrator of this antisemitic infamy will be quickly found.”
The public prosecutor’s office of the Paris region in a statement said, “Two fires were observed several dozen meters apart on March 20 shortly after 2 a.m., in Saint-Mandé in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, near the Hyper Cacher.” Local police are investigating a suspected “willful damage by fire,” the statement said.
