A memorial plaque honoring Ilan Halimi, a young French Jew kidnapped, tortured and killed by a gang in 2006, was damaged in the city of Bagneux, a suburb of Paris.
The glass-and-stone plaque was found smashed Saturday evening.
The city’s mayor, Marie-Hélène Amiable expressed outrage at this act, calling it "outrageous and unacceptable.’’ ‘’I am extremely shocked," she said.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement Sunday that prosecutors have opened an investigation into the damage to the monument in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
The memorial plaque has been removed for repairs.
Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old cellphone salesman, was kidnapped in Bagneux on 21 January 2006 by an anti-Semitic gang calling itself "The Barbarians," led by Youssouf Fofana, after being lured by a 17-year-old female gang member into what turned out to be a honeypot trap.
He was held for 24 days in an apartment building, where, bound and with his head covered entirely in duct tape apart from a small gap for his mouth, he was subjected to a horrifying ordeal of beatings and torture, while gang members attempted to extract a 450,000 Euro ransom from his family.
Halimi was found naked, handcuffed and tied to a tree three weeks after his capture, but died from his wounds on the way to hospital.
More than 80% of his body had been burned with acid and gasoline.
France has witnessed a rising tide of anti-Semitic acts in the last few years. In January of this year, an Islamist terrorist took several hostages in a Jewish supermarket in Paris before killing four people.
Earlier this week, a Jewish man was assaulted by a 40-strong Muslim gang in the same Paris street where Ilan Halimi worked.