"I am fed up of all these anti-Semitic acts, in their different forms that we saw on January 9 in France, yesterday in Copenhagen and today in Alsace," said Roger Cukierman, president of CRIF, the umbrella representative group of France’s Jewish organizations after the desecration of at least 200 tombs at a Jewish cemetery in Sarre Union, a town of Alsace, in the northeast of France.
"It's an image of desolation," said the president of the Alsace region Philippe Richert, describing how Jewish steles, stone or wooden slabs often used for commemorative purposes, were knocked down and even some slabs at the gravesites had been lifted.
"One doesn't knock over heavy steles like that dating from the 19th century very easily. it was a deliberate act of destruction," he said.
The region's police and prosecutor came to the cemetery Sunday evening as well the Chief Rabbi of Strasbourg, Rene Gutman.
Such "cowardly acts" showed a "lack of moral and ethical values" and was an illustration of a failure of France's national education system, Cukierman said.
French President Francois Hollande called the desecration an "odious and barbaric act". French Prime Minister Manuel Valls condemned the vandals, calling it "anti-Semitic" and "ignoble".
"The country will not tolerate this new injury which goes against the values that all French people share," Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
"Every effort will be made to identify, question and bring to justice the person or persons responsible for this despicable act," he added.