An act of vandalism heavy with meaning. An olive tree planted in the commune of Épinay-sur-Seine (93) in memory of Ilan Halimi, a young Frenchman of Jewish confession kidnapped and tortured to death in 2006 by the “gang of barbarians”, was cut in a malicious way, according to the mayor of the city Hervé Chevreau this Thursday, August 14.
The facts occurred on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, said the elected official of the commune of Seine-Saint-Denis, who said he had filed a complaint.
Photos show the trunk of this tree planted in March 2011 probably cut using a chainsaw, about twenty centimeters from the ground, in front of a stele paying homage to Ilan Halimi, whose death had caused great emotion in France.
“An act of vandalism affecting collective memory”
Discovered naked, gagged, handcuffed and carrying traces of torture and burns, the young man died during his transfer to the hospital in February 2006.
Mathieu Hanotin, president of the Public Plaine Commune establishment, to which Épinay-sur-Seine belongs, condemned after the slaughter of the olive tree “An act of vandalism affecting the collective memory of this anti -Semitic murder”.
He is committed to a press release “As long as a new commemorative tree be replanted as soon as possible”. Two other trees planted in tribute to Ilan Halimi had been vandalized in 2019 in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, in Essonne, where it had been found dying on the edge of a railway.