STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - Vandals have defaced a Jewish cemetery in the eastern French city of Strasbourg by painting swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans on about 20 tombstones and on a wall, police said on Saturday.
The cemetery desecration, discovered on Friday, was the latest incident in a wave of attacks in France since Israel launched its military offensive in the West Bank two weeks ago to crush Palestinian militants.
Local Jewish community leader Pierre Levy said many people buried in the cemetery had been Holocaust survivors and added: "This is a double insult, to these people and to history."
Police have opened an inquiry into the desecration, the fourth at a Jewish site in the Cronenbourg section of Strasbourg this month.
An unexploded bomb was found at another Cronenbourg cemetery in early April after an arson attack there and a fire at a nearby synagogue
Human rights groups say anti-Jewish violence reached new heights in France this week as boys in a Jewish football team in Paris were beaten with metal bars and heavy metal petanque balls in the first organised assault since the attacks began.
France is home to Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim communities and many of the attackers appear to be angry young Muslims of Arab origin taking out their frustration at French society on easy targets such as Jewish schools and shops.
Two young men of North African origin have been detained and three more put under investigation in connection with the arson attacks at the Cronenbourg cemetery, police sources said.
In Paris, Labour Minister Elisabeth Guigou -- whose portfolio includes issues such as integration of young people -- backed the idea of a mass demonstration organised by the Jewish and Muslim communities for peace in the Middle East.
"We should show that the overwhelming majority of French people, whatever their religion, want peace in the Middle East, civil peace and dialogue in France," she told the Le Monde daily.
French Jews and Muslims held separate demonstrations in Paris last weekend, leading many politicians to express concern that French society was breaking down into opposing communities instead of seeing all citizens as equally French.