A statement issued on November 8 by the prosecutor for the city of Paris, Laure Beccuau, said that police had identified and arrested a man and a woman in connection with the graffiti. Referencing surveillance camera footage, Beccuau’s statement said the two suspects had stenciled the stars overnight, working in unison with a third individual who took photographs of the graffiti. The statement added that the alleged perpetrators of the graffiti may have contacts with another couple, consisting of an unnamed 28-year-old Moldovan woman and a 33-year-old Moldovan man. Police had arrested the Moldovans in Paris on October 27, for painting the same stenciled Start of David on a building in Paris.

The statement by the Paris prosecutor alleges that both couples had been in contact “with the same third party”, a Russian-speaking individual who had offered to pay them in exchange for graffitiing the stars. “It therefore cannot be ruled out that the tagging of the blue Stars of David in the Paris region was carried out at the explicit request of a person living abroad”, the statement concludes. Some reports speculated that the graffiti may have been part of a campaign by a “foreign actor trying to undermine French social cohesion”.

Last Thursday, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs openly accused Russia for carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at amplifying the Star of David graffiti on social media, allegedly in order to discredit France. The ministry said the disinformation campaign reflected “a persisting opportunistic and irresponsible strategy of using international crises to create confusion and tensions in the public debate in France and in Europe”. Later on the same day, the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Paris issued a statement on social media, condemning France’s “groundless attempts to seek out a ‘Russian connection’ in events having no connection with our country and pin responsibility on Russia with the sole aim of discrediting it”.