David Boucherie of France says his house was torched because he is Jewish. Photo: Screenshot.

A man whose home was wrecked by a fire last week has claimed antisemites are behind the attack, French Jewish news website JSS News reported on Monday.

“This is criminal … there were two outbreaks of fire in front of my front door and at the back of the apartment,” said David Boucherie, a painter who has lived in the apartment in the northern French city of Moulins for the last 50 years, according to the report.

He said the fire, which gutted his house and destroyed most of his belongings, was “antisemitic.”

“It is because I am Jewish,” he said, adding that following an altercation with local residents last week, a placard with a star of David and the words “dirty Jew” was hung above his door.

Neighbors showed JSS News a picture of the graffiti, which was accompanied by a message warning the painter to pay off a debt to a drug dealer or face the consequences.

The fire was reported last Thursday at 6:00 p.m. Firefighters responded and put out the flames.

“I owe no debt to a drug dealer,” said Boucherie, who called such claims a “manipulation.”

Tensions have run high among France’s Jewish community since a terrorist attack at a Kosher supermarket in Paris in January. Hundreds of antisemitic incidents were reported in the country last year.

Earlier this month, a French-Jewish woman was attacked by assailants shouting “Hitler didn’t finish his work,” and in a separate incident two assailants pinned down a Jewish man while another attacker beat him. Separately, a 40-person mob was reported to have attacked two Jewish men in Paris about a month ago.