Five French teens held for vandalising Jewish graves

French prosecutors said Monday they had taken five teenagers into custody suspected of vandalising hundreds of Jewish graves, an act that prompted fresh pleas for Jews not to turn their back on France.

The boys are aged between 15 and 17 and all come from Sarre-Union in Alsace, eastern France, where around 300 tombs were defaced and damaged on Thursday.

The youngest came forward after seeing the scale of the reaction across the country to the vandalism, prosecutor Philippe Vannier said.