PARIS (AP) — France says it has been the target of a Russian online destabilization campaign that used bots to whip up controversy and confusion about spray-painted Stars of David that appeared on Paris streets and fed alarm about surging antisemitism in France during the Israel-Hamas war.
The 250 or so quickly erased blue stars are now the subject of French police investigations seeking to determine whether the graffiti were antisemitic, as Paris' police chief and others initially suspected, and if they were organized from outside France.
The stars' stenciling on walls in Paris and its suburbs last month quickly fomented debate and alarm on social media and concerns about the safety of France's Jewish community, the largest in Europe.
Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, triggering their latest and deadliest war, French authorities have counted more than 1,150 antisemitic acts. That's nearly three times more than all acts against French Jews in 2022, the Interior Ministry says.