investigators favor the hypothesis of a destabilization operation coming from Russia

“Red hands” tags were discovered on the Shoah Memorial last week.

The hypothesis of a destabilization operation originating from Russia is favored by the investigators in the affair of the tags of “red hands” on the Shoah Memorial in Paris, Franceinfo learned on Tuesday, May 21, from a source close to the file confirming information from Le Canard chainé.

Of the “red hands” had been tagged on the night of Monday May 13 to Tuesday May 14 on the “Wall of the Righteous” outside the Shoah Memorial in Paris, leading to numerous reactions and condemnations from the political spectrum.

Tuesday May 21, franceinfo learned that the police are moving, as during the affair of the stars of David tagged last November in Paris, towards an intervention operation by Moscow. First, video surveillance cameras filmed the scene. Around three o’clock in the morning, two figures move around, spray paint and stencil in hand. Investigators were quickly able to identify them thanks to their telephone numbers: the two graffiti artists, as well as one or two other men likely to be involved, are all Bulgarians. All these men left France by bus from the Bercy bus station towards Brussels, the same morning of Tuesday, May 14, just after having spray painted the Shoah Memorial.

“It’s copy and paste,” comments an expert, referring to the hundreds of blue Stars of David found on the walls of the capital last fall, a few weeks after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. At the time, the trio identified was Moldovan, not Bulgarian, but for investigators, there is little doubt that today it is still an operation to destabilize public opinion from Russia. Furthermore, the Parisian police are also thinking of Moscow for other tags linked to the Olympic Games. At the end of March, on the Île de la Cité, near Notre-Dame Cathedral, an inscription “Be careful, possible fall from the balcony” had been stencilled on many facades while the real estate federation had warned a few days earlier of the risk linked to spectators gathered on the balconies to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on the Seine.