http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/in...france.html?hp
Thwarted in Germany, Neo-Nazis Take Fascism to France
By CRAIG S. SMITH
Published: August 13, 2004
HIPSHEIM, France - Luis Branco, an artist in this small Alsatian village, first realized something was unusual about the young Germans partying at the local community hall two weeks ago when a conversation with one of them took a mildly racist turn.
Then the man shot his arm forward in a Nazi salute and declared, "Ich Allemagne," an awkward mix of German and French that translates literally as, "I, Germany," before rejoining as many as 400 skinheads dancing to heavy metal music nearby.
"They were very motivated," said Mr. Branco, standing this week outside the low concrete building that still bears traces of the swastikas and double lightning bolt insignias of Hitler's SS that had been scratched onto the wall.
When he came to take a closer look that Saturday evening, he saw that the hall had been decorated with a 10-foot wide red wooden eagle and a Gothic plaque bearing the inscription Elsass Beim Reich, a Nazi slogan declaring that this long-contested corner of France is part of the German empire.
A few days later, more than a dozen Muslim tombstones were painted with swastikas at a military cemetery on the outskirts of Strasbourg, the Alsatian capital, and several days after that, dozens of Jewish tombstones were scrawled with Nazi symbols and anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim slurs in Lyon in southern France.
The desecrations were part of a wave of neo-Nazi acts that have swept France this year - a dozen such desecrations since April alone. Many officials suggest that the incidents are meant to repudiate the 60th anniversary commemorations of the Allied offensive that drove Hitler's forces out of France and into history.
-Rudey
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