PARIS, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Paris police have arrested a Jewish man in what was believed to be an anti-Semitic torching of a Jewish community center.
The unidentified suspect is a 50-year-old homeless man who occasionally worked at the center as a security guard, the BBC said Monday.
Local media said the man was considered mentally unstable and was soon to be fired.
Swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans were scrawled on the walls of the center before it was set ablaze on the night of Aug. 21.
Police are no longer treating the arson as an anti-Semitic attack.
Anti-Semitic acts have more than doubled in France in the first seven months of the year compared with 2003, with 160 incidents reported from January to July, and 75 last year.
In July, a French woman claimed she had been the victim of vicious anti-Semitic assault on a train, but later admitted she made it up, and was given a four-month suspended sentence and ordered to undergo psychiatric counseling.
