A kosher supermarket burned down in Paris early Tuesday, on the third anniversary of the Islamic terrorist attack on the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in the French capital in which four Jews were murdered.
No one was injured in the fire at the Promo & Stock supermarket in Creteil, a southeastern suburb of Paris. But the blaze was so hot it melted the store's metal shutters. It also caused damage to the adjacent Hyper Cacher supermarket.
French authorities are treating the incident as a probable arson attack. The store's shutters were found to have been forced open, supporting the assumption that the fire was an act of arson, Antoine Besme of the regional prosecutor's office told The Associated Press.
Less than a week earlier, anti-Semitic graffiti and swastikas were spray-painted on the supermarket's shutters, as well as on the Hyper Cacher store next door.
Besme said a preliminary investigation had been launched and authorities were checking to see if the fire was linked to last week's vandalism.
The owner of the Promo & Stock store is a Muslim known for maintaining excellent relations with the Jewish community in Creteil.
According to the French Jewish National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, the fire was apparently intended to punish the store owner for his good relations with Jews.
Albert Elharrar, president of the Creteil Jewish community, told AP the good relations between the Muslim owner and local Jews shows "the spirit of the city of Creteil where the Jewish community lives."
Creteil is home to a large Jewish community, numbering 23,000 out of 90,000 residents, as well as to a large Muslim and Arab community. In recent years, the number of Jews has shrunk because of increased friction with Muslim neighbors.
Israeli Ambassador to France Aliza Bin-Noun tweeted a message condemning the attack, calling it a "shameful provocation" and saying it "proves the need to continue fighting against anti-Semitism."
On Jan. 9, 2015, Islamic extremist Amedy Coulibaly took hostages at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in central Paris and killed four people. That attack occurred one day after Coulibaly killed a policewoman in a southern suburb of the capital and two days after his associates, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, murdered 11 people in the offices of the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris and a policeman on a nearby street. Those incidents preceded a wave of deadly Islamic assaults in France that took dozens of lives.
Tuesday's incident came as France led a somber tribute to the 17 victims of the January 2015 Paris attacks.
