A Jewish cemetery in eastern France was desecrated Wednesday, with at least 18 gravestones marked with swastikas and overturned, the Associated Press reports.

The desecration in a Strasbourg cemetery came on the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the detah camp at Auschwitz, now observed internationally as Holocaust Remembrance Day.

France's main Jewish organization, CRIF, said at least 18 tombstones at the Cronenbourg cemetery were found Wednesday marked with swastikas and 13 of them were overturned. The CRIF's Marc Knobel said the inscription "juden raus" (Jews out) was found on one tomb.

A statement from the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy said he "firmly condemns this unbearable act, the expression of odious racism." It asked that those responsible be quickly identified and their acts "treated with the severity called for."

France is home to western Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim populations, and there are occasional attacks on their schools, cemeteries or places of worship, the AP reports.