Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Wire Service: AP
On August 7, 2004 the Associated Press reported, "Vandals painted swastikas on the graves of France's Muslim servicemen at a military cemetery in eastern France, officials said Friday. President Jacques Chirac condemned the desecration of about 15 headstones at the cemetery in the Cronenbourg neighborhood in Strasbourg. The vandalism was discovered Friday, local officials said. 'Rest assured that the public forces will be mobilized to identify and punish the authors of this cowardly profanation,' he wrote in a letter to Abdelhaq Nabaoui, head of the regional Muslim council in Alsace. 'I express the solidarity of the nation to all the families concerned, the Muslim community and its leaders. And beyond their religious affiliation, I restate forcefully that to insult the memory of the soldiers who gave their lives for the homeland is a grave offense to all French people,' Chirac said in the letter, a copy of which was provided to reporters. The attack was the latest in a months-long series of anti-Muslim graffiti appearing in France. Several cemeteries containing Muslim graves were vandalized in a similar manner in June."