PARIS — The tomb of former French Justice Minister Robert Badinter, who was known for defending human rights and was inducted into the country’s Panthéon national monument Thursday, was vandalized in a cemetery close to Paris, officials said.

Badinter, who died last year at age 95, spearheaded the drive to abolish France’s death penalty and campaigned against antisemitism and Holocaust denial. It was also under Badinter’s watch that France decriminalized homosexuality.

Marie-Hélène Amiable, the mayor of Bagneux where Badinter was buried, said she learned Thursday that his tomb had been defaced with graffiti.

“The inscriptions discovered by the police denounce his commitments against the death penalty and in favor of the decriminalization of homosexuality," Amiable said. “They are unwort

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