Attacks Target Jews In France

President Jacques Chirac urged tighter security at religious sites Monday after attacks on synagogues in France sparked a warning of a new "Kristallnacht" of violence against Jews.

Chirac made the call after a fire, whose cause has not yet been determined, gutted a synagogue in the southern port city of Marseille overnight. Two other synagogues were attacked during the Easter weekend.

The assaults coincided with an escalation of violence in the Middle East, where Palestinians have carried out suicide bombings and Israeli troops have besieged Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's headquarters since Friday.

In France, which has more than four million practicing Muslims and an influential Jewish community, Chirac condemned the incidents out of hand.

"The president of the republic reiterates his strong condemnation of these intolerable acts," Chirac's office said in a statement, adding he was awaiting the outcome of a probe into the origin of the fire at the Marseille synagogue.

"He has asked the government to reinforce security particularly at religious sites and to use all necessary means to find and severely punish those responsible for these crimes."

Visiting a synagogue in the port of Le Havre, Chirac added that such acts were "unimaginable, unpardonable."

Interior Minister Daniel Vaillant, joining politicians from left and right in slamming the assaults, said national police were fully mobilized and were hunting the perpetrators. He ordered tougher security at all cultural and religious sites.

France's Jewish community expressed fears Sunday of a new "Kristallnacht" -- the night of coordinated attacks on Jews and their businesses across Nazi Germany in November 1938.

The Union of Jewish Students decried "the implantation of anti-Semitic terrorism in France," and six Jewish bodies called a demonstration backing Israel for April 7.

Firemen in Marseille said the Or Aviv synagogue had been razed to the ground by fire just before midnight Sunday. "It is 100 percent destroyed," a spokesman said. Police have opened an inquiry into the cause of the blaze.

The 20-year-old synagogue, located in the middle of a housing project, was gutted, with only a sunken roof and a charred façade remaining.

"All the religious objects, books, the Torah, all of it burned," Sydney Maimoun, the synagogue's president, said Monday. There's "really nothing left," he said.

"A synagogue that burns in the middle of the night with no one inside, without a candle alight -- that can only be a criminal act," Marseille's chief rabbi Charles Bismuth said.

As some 15,000 people marched in support of the Palestinians in Paris, Lyon and Strasbourg, a Jewish couple was attacked in the Lyon suburb of Villeurbanne, and shots were fired at a kosher butcher's shop in Toulouse.

Other anti-Semitic attacks in France over the weekend include: