French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to punish an act of anti-Semitic “hatred” on Friday, after an olive tree planted to commemorate a murdered Jewish man was chopped down. Ilan Halimi was kidnapped by a gang of about 20 youths and tortured in a housing estate in a suburb of Paris in 2006. The 23-year-old was found three weeks later with severe burns and torture wounds but died on the way to hospital. The incident on Friday stoked fresh concerns about an increase in anti-Semitic acts and hate crimes in France as international tension mounts over Gaza.
