The number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded in France in 2020 dropped by 50% from 2019, yet physical assaults remained almost unchanged despite COVID-19 lockdowns, French Jewry’s security service said.

The SPCJ service recorded 339 incidents last year compared to 687 cases in 2019. Of those, 44 and 45 cases, respectively, were physical assaults, according to the organization’s annual report, which it published Wednesday. In 2017 and in 2016, SPCJ recorded fewer incidents than in 2020, when emergency measures meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus severely limited outdoors activity throughout France.

Conspiracy theories about COVID-19 accounted for much of the online cases documented, SPCJ wrote.

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