After the blue stars came the red hands. Six days after the discovery of 35 stencils depicting red palms, painted during the night of May 13 to 14 on the Wall of the Righteous at the Shoah Memorial in Paris, investigations once again point to foreign interference. The modus operandi is strikingly reminiscent of the Star of David graffiti discovered at the end of October on several walls in the capital, which was officially denounced by the French Foreign Ministry as a campaign of Russian influence.
In the wake of the discovery of these red hands, painted beneath the plaques listing the names of people who saved Jews during the Second World War, many political leaders denounced them as an act of anti-Semitic vandalism. This controversial symbol, brandished at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, caused a stir when students at Sciences Po were seen using it at the end of April. Some see it as referring to the massacre of two Israeli soldiers with bare hands by the crowd in October 2000, at the start of the second Intifada.
But the investigation opened on May 14 by the Paris prosecutor's office for "degradation aggravated by the circumstance of discrimination on the grounds of actual or supposed membership of a particular origin, ethnic group, race or religion," due to the symbolic value of the vandalized site, points to a new attempt at manipulation. As Le Canard Enchaîné first reported, and as confirmed to Le Monde by the Paris prosecutor's office, it didn't take long for investigators from the Paris regional security service to track down those responsible for the stencils.
Thanks to video surveillance cameras and telephone landmarks, the police were able to determine that the three individuals involved – two taggers and an accomplice responsible for filming the scene – stayed at a hotel in the 20th arrondissement of the capital. "Investigations established that the reservations had been made from Bulgaria," the prosecutor's office said, without going into the nationality of the suspects.
Immediately after their operation, the three individuals took a Flixbus from the Bercy bus station bound for Brussels. Once again, the exfiltration procedure is reminiscent of the Stars of David incident. After the discovery of almost 250 stencils of blue stars painted on several walls in the capital at the end of October, investigators identified two Moldovan couples. The first couple was arrested in Paris and admitted in police custody that they had acted at the request of a pro-Russian former Moldovan politician. But the second fled on board a Flixbus to Brussels.
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