Paris
AP
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French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday vowed that efforts to pursue and prosecute unknown attackers who cut down an olive tree planted in honor of the French Jews killed in 2006.
Planted 14 years ago on the outskirts of Paris in Epinai-sur-Sein, the commemorative tree of Iranian Halimi was cut down on Wednesday night and along with a seemingly chainsaw. The town posted a photo on its Facebook page. The lush, bushy top of the tree has been completely cut off from the base, with stumps protruding from the ground.
“Cutting down a tree that honors Iranian Halimi is an attempt to kill him a second time,” Macron posted on X.
“All measures are being deployed to punish this act of hatred. In the face of anti-Semitism, the Republic is not always exempt from compromise,” he added.
Harimi was naked and handcuffed and covered in burning marks near a railway track in the Essonne region south of Paris on February 13, 2006. He was 23 years old. The brutal murder revived concerns about anti-Semitism in France and brought deep anxiety to the French Jewish community, the largest in Western Europe.
French Prime Minister François Bailloux said in a post in X that the olive tree was “defeated by anti-Semitist hatred.”
“Crime cannot uproot memories; our never-ending battle with the deadly poison of hatred is our number one duty,” he writes.
In another post, the Paris Police Chief condemned “the ignorant act” and said an investigation had begun. “Everything will be done to find the perpetrator and deliver it to justice,” he vowed.
The attacker has previously seceded other efforts to keep Harimi’s memories alive. In 2017, a memorial plaque near Paris was torn apart, thrown to the ground, covered in anti-Semitic writing.
