Outrage followed the destruction of an olive tree dedicated to the memory of Ilan Halimi, a Parisian Jew who was tortured to death in 2006, Le Parisien daily reported.
According to CCTV footage, the tree was cut down in the Parc des Senteurs in the city of Épinay-sur-Seine, a northern suburb of Paris, during the night between Wednesday and Thursday.
Planted in 2011 in the presence of the chief rabbi of France and the Jewish community, the olive tree paid tribute to the 23-year-old Jewish man who was kidnapped and tortured for 24 days by the “Gang of Barbarians” before succumbing to his injuries on Feb. 13, 2006.
The commemorative plaque at the foot of the tree was not damaged.
The city’s mayor, Hervé Chevreau, has no doubt that this was an antisemitic act. “The fact that this olive tree paid tribute to Ilan Halimi was well known,” he said, adding that he had filed a complaint for “destruction of property intended for public use or decoration.”
He promised to replace the tree and once again honor the memory of the young man.
On Friday, French Prime Minister François Bayrou said, “The tree for Ilan Halimi, a living bulwark against forgetting, was cut down by antisemitic hatred.
“No crime can uproot memory. The never-ending struggle against the mortal poison of hatred is our foremost duty,” he added.
L’arbre pour Ilan Halimi, vivant rempart contre l’oubli, a été fauché par la haine antisémite. Nul crime ne peut déraciner la mémoire. La lutte jamais achevée contre le mortel poison de la haine est notre devoir premier.
— François Bayrou (@bayrou) August 15, 2025
‘Their shame will continue’
Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of Diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, said, “Mr. Macron, you felled the tree with your own hands and through your actions.
“No French president has been more hostile to the Jewish people since the Vichy regime. Your legacy will be 21% support and backing for Hamas,” Chikli added.
The Vichy regime, officially the French state, was the collaborationist government that ruled unoccupied France during World War II after the country’s 1940 defeat and armistice with Germany. Leader Marshal Philippe Pétain cooperated with the Germans in deporting Jews during the Holocaust.
Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that his country intends to recognize a Palestinian state during the U.N. General Assembly annual meeting in September.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu censured the decision in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, saying “such a move rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy, just as Gaza became.”
U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed Macron’s plan, telling reporters that “what he says doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change anything.”
In May, Macron accused Netanyahu of “unacceptable” behavior for blocking aid to Gaza and agreed Europe should revisit its cooperation agreement with Israel. He also called for a halt on arms deliveries to Israel in October 2024, earning a sharp rebuke from Netanyahu, who said Jerusalem would “win with or without their support, but their shame will continue long after the war is won.”
The French president also attempted to ban Israeli defense firms from displaying their wares at two major Paris arms fairs, Eurosatory and Euronaval. A French court reversed those bans as discriminatory.
Friday’s development recalls a previous incident in February 2019 in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, in the southern suburbs of Paris, where two trees planted in memory of Halimi were cut down a few days before a memorial ceremony.
Tortured, naked and with burns to more than 80% of his body, Halimi was dumped next to a road in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois on Feb. 13, 2006. He died on the way to the hospital.
Originally published by the European Jewish Press.
