More than two dozen graves were desecrated at a Jewish cemetery near Strasbourg in northeastern France, the second incident of its type in the area this year, authorities said Wednesday.

The tombstones were overturned and damaged, and covered in profanities some time between Sunday and Wednesday morning, a judicial source said.

Twenty-seven graves were damaged at the cemetery in the village of Wolfisheim.

“It is a shock to the Jewish community, and for everybody,” regional delegate Pierre Levy told Radio Blue Alsace, describing the attack as “methodical”.

“The perpetrators of this criminal act have taken away that which is most sacred to the human conscience,” the local Jewish organization said in a statement.

Around 30 Jewish graves were desecrated in the Strasbourg area in late January, on the same day as the commemoration of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps.

In late June 18 Muslim tombs were desecrated in the same area.

(Source: AFP / EJP)