The French interior minister says anti-Semitic acts soared last year and is decrying the "poison" of hate.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said Monday night that the total of registered anti-Semitic acts rose to 541 in 2018 from 311 in 2017.
He spoke in the Paris suburb of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, where vandals chopped down trees planted in honor of Ilan Halimi, a Jewish man who was abducted, tortured and killed in 2006 by Muslims.
Castaner vows the government will fight anti-Semitism, calling it "an attack against hope."
He did not link the rise to any specific groups. But some members of France's yellow vest anti-government movement are known for extremist views, and several anti-Semitic incidents have occurred amid the broad-based movement that started in November.
Last March, the charred body of Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll, 85, was found in her Paris apartments. She had been stabbed 11 times before her home was set on fire. Authorities said the murder was most likely motivated by anti-Semitism. In September 2017, French Jew Sarah Halimi was murdered by a Muslim neighbor, who also threw her body out of a window.
Psychiatrists determined that Halimi's killer, Malian native Kada Traore, had been motivated by anti-Semitism.
