A 33-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman, born in Moldova, were arrested last Friday for having spray painted a Star of David on a wall in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, and were placed in administrative detention, announced Wednesday 1st November the prosecution, confirming information from BFM-TV. The couple was arrested for “degradation aggravated by the fact that it was committed because of origin or religion,” said the prosecution.
The couple had been reported by a local resident who saw the man and woman “tagging a blue star”, which was “erased the same day”. The couple “declared having committed this offense on the orders of a third party”, adds the prosecution. Both in an irregular situation, they were taken to an administrative detention center, according to the latter. The legal proceedings were therefore closed due to a “sanction of another nature”, that is to say “their expulsion from the territory”, he explained. Furthermore, the prosecution announced that “the authors of the multiple tags observed on Tuesday [had] not yet been identified”. According to BFM-TV, another couple is currently being sought by investigators.
Blurry about the motivations of the authors
Around sixty Stars of David were found on Tuesday on several building facades in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, after having been drawn with a blue stencil. An investigation was opened for “degradation of the property of others aggravated by the circumstance that it was committed because of origin, race, ethnicity or religion” and entrusted to the territorial security of Paris.
The prosecution specified that it did not know whether these tags “are intended to insult the Jewish people or to claim belonging to it, in particular since it is the blue star” and not the yellow one, while deeming it necessary to investigate, “with regard to the geopolitical context and its impact within the population”.