Vandals daubed a swastika and wrote "death to the Jews" on a wall in front of Paris's Notre Dame cathedral overnight, police said today.
The act of vandalism, the first in Paris since a series of desecrations recently at Jewish, Muslim and Christian cemeteries in eastern France, was discovered on the day Pope John Paul began a two-day pilgrimage to Lourdes in the southwest.
The facade of the Gothic cathedral, one of the best-known churches in the Catholic world, was untouched, police said.
"Writing was found on one of the low walls ... in front of the cathedral," a police spokesman said. "Three stones of the low wall were also worked loose but were left in place."
Church officials notified police of the incident today morning. The public prosecutor has asked the police to open an inquiry, the spokesman said.
The mayor of Paris, condemning the vandalism, said that the anti-semitic sign and words had been removed and the stones put back in place.
The incident "inspires me with as much sadness as disgust," Betrand Delanoe said in a statement. "I sincerely hope that the writers of this new insult to the values of our civilisation will be rapidly identified and severely punished."
More than 300 graves, including those of soldiers who died for France, have been desecrated in eastern France since April despite a drive by French President Jacques Chirac to eradicate racism and protect the country's image as a tolerant society.
Police have not found any organised effort behind the sporadic attacks, which the media have linked with neo-Nazi groups in the Alsace region.
In his welcoming message to John Paul, Mr Chirac mentioned his efforts to fight "all forms of discrimination, oppression, racism and hatred, so urgent in the face of the rise of fanaticism and intolerance."