In yesterday's post, I recounted and reacted to a recent attack on a French military cemetery where soldiers from the First World War are interred.

From comments, either I was off the mark, or I wasn't emphatic enough.

The damage done was not a property crime, perpetrated by vandals.

It was a hate crime, directed against Muslim and Jewish soldiers who fought under the French flag in the First World War. The crime aimed at erasing from collective memory these veterans' service and sacrifice. It was timed carefully to coincide with a Muslim holiday that commemorates Abraham's sacrifice, when it's common to visit graves of deceased family members.

I question and criticize the tepid response from French officials. But I don't think the French failings were simply a matter of poor policing and inadequate fencing. That they were, but the failings of French officialdom are deeper and more serious: at a battlefield memorial, the French state carries a special responsibility as custodian of a collective memory. This duty has been neglected or carried out poorly.

And I think it would be a mistake to make the criminals into the heroes of their own imagined story. Of course, police work should lead to the identification and prosecution of suspects. But I would welcome more a recollection of the steep human cost of the First World War and the diverse backgrounds of French veterans in that conflict.