Five teenagers have been arrested in eastern France on suspicion of ransacking hundreds of graves in a Jewish cemetery.
Some 250 graves were vandalized in Sarre-Union, a town in the Alsace region of France near the German border. There were reports that they had been painted with Swastikas. The crime was discovered on Sunday, but it's believed to have happened a few days earlier.
The five, between ages 15 and 17, have no criminal records and their motives are unknown at this stage of the investigation, according to Le Monde. They face up to seven years in prison if convicted.
Grave stones were upturned and smashed; some tombs were opened and a stone monument to the victims of the Holocaust also lay broken at the entrance to the cemetery.
French President Francois Hollande visited the small town Tuesday and said he had never seen a Jewish graveyard attacked with such rage, intensity or frenzy.
#Hollande arrive au #CimetièreJuif pic.twitter.com/rYxAzLdDXO— MarionVan Renterghem (@MarionVanR) February 17, 2015
"Jamais un cimetière juif n'a été profané avec cet acharnement, avec cette intensité, avec cette frénésie" Hollande pic.twitter.com/wpI1fmaew1— MarionVan Renterghem (@MarionVanR) February 17, 2015
Elsewhere, high-school students in the town observed two minutes of silence and organised an impromptu march via social media holding placards saying "coexistence," "respect" and "acceptation."
Des centaines de lycéens de Sarre-Union organisent une marche ce matin après la profanation du cimetière pic.twitter.com/NdCNdR239Y— France 3 Alsace (@F3Alsace) February 17, 2015
"We are all outraged by this desecration, it is very serious," a 17-year-old student told France 3 Alsace.