Getty ImagesFrench President Emmanuel Macron has pledged that every effort will be made to track down and punish the person who cut down a tree commemorating a murdered Jew.
The memorial tree was planted 14 years ago to honour Ilan Halimi, who was tortured and murdered by a Paris gang in 2006, sparking widespread shock and outrage at the time.
Macron said the felling of the olive tree on Wednesday was “an attempt to kill him a second time”, adding: “All means are being deployed to punish this act of hatred.”
Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez confirmed an investigation was under way, adding: “Everything will be done to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.”
Halimi’s body was found by a railway line handcuffed to a tree, naked and severely burned, having been held captive by the Barbarian gang for more than three weeks.
He was lured by a female gang member to an empty apartment in February 2006, where he was attacked and drugged.
The kidnappers tried unsuccessfully to extort a ransom of €450,000 ($600,000; £405,000) from his family, sending them harrowing images and video recordings.
The mastermind – Youssouf Fofana – targeted Halimi because of his Jewish heritage, believing his family to be unduly wealthy.
Fofana was later sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 22 years, while other accomplices implicated in the crime received lesser sentences.
Getty ImagesThe tree in the suburb of Épinay-sur-Seine was one of several memorials across the French capital for Halimi before it was cut down.
The local authority said it had been found cut down on Thursday morning, posting an image of it showing the tree chopped off at the base and thrown into a nearby flowerbed.
Macron said France “will not forget this child of France who died because he was Jewish”.
“In the face of antisemitism, the Republic is always uncompromising,” he added.
French Prime Minister François Bayrou also blamed “antisemitic hatred” for the tree being felled.
“No crime can uproot memory,” he wrote. “The never-ending fight against the deadly poison of hatred is our primary duty.”
In 2019, another tree honouring Halimi was reportedly chopped down, in what officials at the time described as an antisemitic attack.
And in 2017, France’s then-interior minister condemned the desecration of a plaque commemorating Halimi in which it was ripped off a wall and covered with antisemitic writing.
