French police investigate after plaque for deported Jews defaced

French police are investigating after a plaque commemorating deported Jewish students was defaced with Nazi symbols in Nice this week.

The plaque was put up in Lycee Albert Calmette in 2005 to commemorate pupils deported between 1942 and 1944. 

The Shoah survivor and politician Simone Veil, who passed away  in 2017, attended the school before she was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. 

Four stickers were placed on the memorial, showing Nazi symbols and slogans promoting the neo-Nazi group Nice Nationalist.

The incident was reported by students at the school who are also members of a communist youth group.

“More than 11,000 children were deported in France and were innocent victims of the Vichy government, which was complicit in the barbarism,” the plaque reads.

“More than 44,000 victims lived in Alpes Maritimes. In their memory, let us reject all assaults against human dignity.”

Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi tweeted on Wednesday: “I condemn the antisemitic defacing of the plaque commemorating Jewish students of Lycee Calmette in Nice deported during the Second World War.

“I demand the immediate dissolution of Nice Nationalist and action against this Neo-Nazi group.”

The local branch of the Jewish umbrella group CRIF called for “firm judicial action” and condemned the incident, saying it was “was part of a number of repeated acts of provocations and hate recorded in recent months.”