Macron promises justice after a memorial on the tree for a killed Jew cut off

French President Emmanuel Macron has promised that every effort will be made to trace and punish the man who cut off a tree commemorably killed a Jew.

The memorial tree was planted 14 years ago to honor Ilan Halimi, who was tortured and killed by a gang in Paris in 2006, causing widespread shock and outrage at that time.

Macron said the cutting down of the olive tree on Wednesday was an attempt to kill it a second time, adding, “All means are unfolding to punish this act of hatred.”

Paris police chief Laurent Nunys confirmed that an investigation was underway, adding: “Everything will be done to find the perpetrators and bring them before the court.”

Halimi’s body was found from a railway line, handcuffed to a tree, naked and heavily burned, and was held captured by the barbarians for more than three weeks.

In February 2006, he was lured by a gang member in an empty apartment where he was also drugged.

The abductors tried unsuccessfully to blackmail a ransom of 450,000 euros ($ 600,000; 405,000 British pounds) from his family, sending them painful images and videos.

Mastermind – Youssou Fofana – is aimed at Halimi because of his Jewish heritage, believing that his family is unjustified.

Fophana was later Lifetime With a minimum period of 22 years, while other complicit involved in the crime received a fewer sentences.

The tree in the suburbs of the Epinaye-Sur-Hein was one of several monuments in the French capital for Halimi before it was cut off.

Local government said it was found cut off Thursday morning, Image From it, showing the tree cut at the base and thrown into a nearby flower bed.

Macron said France “would not forget this child of France, who died because he was a Jew.”

“The republic is always uncompromising before anti -Semitism,” he added.

French Prime Minister Francois Bayro has also accused the “anti -Semitic hatred” of falling the tree.

“No crime can eradicate memory,” he writes. “The endless struggle against the deadly hate poison is our main duty.”

In 2019, it was reported that another tree in honor of Halimi was cut into what employees at the time described as an anti -Semitic attack.

And in 2017, the then Minister of France condemned the defilement of plaque in memory of Halimi, in which he was detached from a wall and covered with anti -Semitic writing.