In Épinay-sur-Seine, emotion and indignation are lively after the destruction of the olive tree dedicated to the memory of Ilan Halimi. During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, around 2 a.m., according to video surveillance images, the tree was cut in the Parc des Scenturs, rue Quetigny, while the site was closed to the public, the Parisian reported this Thursday.
Planted in 2011 in the presence of the great rabbi of France and the Jewish community, the olive tree paid tribute to this young man of 20 -year -old Jewish confession, kidnapped and tortured for 24 days by the “gang of barbarians” before succumbing to his injuries on February 13, 2006. The commemorative stele, placed at the foot of the tree, was not damaged.
For the mayor Hervé Chevreau, there is no doubt that it is an anti -Semitic act. “The fact that this olive tree paid tribute to Ilan Halimi was known,” he recalls, announcing that he has filed a complaint for “destruction of good intended for utility or public decoration”. The targeted character of this degradation, the olive tree being the only affected tree, reinforces this hypothesis. The case evokes a precedent which occurred in February 2019 in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (Essonne), where two trees planted in memory of Ilan Halimi had been sawn a few days before a commemorative ceremony. In Épinay, the municipality promises to replace the tree and to honor the memory of the young man again, a tragic symbol of the fight against anti -Semitism.