SCORES of British war graves were vandalised at a cemetery in northern France yesterday, provoking outrage from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and French authorities.

In what gendarmes said was one of the worst acts of vandalism they had witnessed on British war graves, 42 headstones at the First World War Albuera Cemetery in the village of Bailleul-sire-Berthoult, near Arras, were toppled over.

Most had been kicked down, officers said, and one was charred after a fire was lit next to it. The register and the visitors’ book were also burnt.

Gendarmes said that they had found beer bottles in the cemetery, and believed the damage was the result of mindless vandalism.

“There is no grafitti and no sign that anyone was trying to make a political message,” said an officer. “We are working on the theory that this could have been carried out by drunken youths.”

Christopher Farrell, administration manager for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in France, said: “This cemetery should be a haven of peace, and obviously any reasonable person would find this shocking.”

He said that acts of vandalism were rare in the 2,915 Commonwealth military cemeteries in France, and tended to involve only a handful of headstones when they occured. “In my time here, I don’t think I can remember as many as 42 being vandalised,” he said.

“The French authorities are being very supportive about this and want to make it clear that they won’t accept any form of vandalism. We saw the village mayor and he cannot believe it happened in his village, especially because every year the council lays a wreath in the cemetery on Armistice Day.”

Michel Dupuis, Mayor of Bailleul-sire-Berthoult, which has a population of 1,148, said: “We are completely sickened by what has happened. It is scandalous to have done such a thing. We hope for only one thing, that those responsible are arrested.”

Hamlaoui Mekachera, the French Minister for Former Soldiers, expressed very strong indignation after the desecration. Describing the attack as barbarous and shocking, he spoke of the “undying gratitude of the French people for the soldiers of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth who came to fight by our sides during two world wars”.

He said police had been ordered to step up surveillance of cemeteries after a series of politically motivated attacks on Jewish and Muslim graves.

The Albuera Cemetery is the burial place of 253 Commonwealth servicemen and one German. British troops first began burying their dead there during the Battle of Arras in the spring of 1917. But after the Armistice, soldiers who had died at other battlefields were brought for burial at Bailleul-sire-Berthoult as well.

In 2003 ten headstones were stolen from the nearby Hiberts Trench Cemetery by thieves believed to have taken them as garden ornaments. Earlier that year protesters daubed slogans condemning the war in Iraq at Etaples Cemetery, which contains 11,000 graves. “But by and large, there’s relatively little vandalism of this sort in France,” said Mr Farrell.

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