In Perros-Guirec in the Côtes d'Armor, a stele in memory of Simone Veil has been vandalized twice in a row in less than a week.
After tomato sauce and excrement, in the night from Sunday to Monday, swastikas have this time covered the monument.
A stele erected in honor of Simone Veil was covered with swastikas in Perros-Guirec, in Côtes-d'Armor, the local gendarmerie said on Wednesday.
"This morning, we discovered that Simone Veil's stele was covered with tags with swastikas," said the Côtes-d'Armor gendarmerie, confirming information from local media.
"We made the findings and the usual investigations," added the same source.
"Unspeakable facts"
At midday, "the stele was covered and completely cleaned", indicated the town hall of Perros-Guirec. "It is very clean," said the town. The investigation was entrusted to the research brigade of Lannion, in the Côtes-d'Armor. Installed on the forecourt of the Town Hall, renamed "Parvis Simone-Veil", this granite stele was inaugurated in November 2017, according to local media.
Above all, the stele had been soiled with tomato sauce and excrement, on the night from Sunday to Monday.
"It is completely odious, unspeakable. Perros-Guirec is a quiet town and this stele has always been decorated with flowers by the inhabitants. We do not understand this gesture at all", assures Europe 1 the mayor, Erven Léon.
"On Monday, when it was smeared, we thought it was the act of someone drunk. There, what was painted on the stele calls out to us. Now there will be increased surveillance. J 'hopes that we will quickly find the author of these unspeakable facts. "
The wrath of Schiappa and the Licra
"#SimoneVeil is a French and global figure in women's rights, in Europe and in the fight against anti-Semitism. To degrade one's stele is to degrade France! These abject acts must not go unpunished", reacted the Minister Delegate to the Ministry of the Interior Marlène Schiappa on Twitter. The Licra (International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism) also expressed "its deep disgust for these cowardly and despicable facts". "Everything must be done so that their perpetrators are identified, tried and sentenced," asked the association on Twitter.
Simone Veil (1927-2017), who was deported to Auschwitz, notably left her name in 1975 to the law legalizing voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion). She was also President of the European Parliament (1979-1982). Also an academic, she was president of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah (2001-2007). She entered the Pantheon in 2018.