A Paris court has ordered Twitter to hand over to the police whatever data it has on the identities of those who circulated antisemitic tweets last autumn.

The case was brought against Twitter by the French Jewish student union after the hashtag ‘#UnBonJuif’ (“a good Jew") became the third most popular in France for several hours on October 10 last year.

Many of the tweets make a joke out of the Holocaust, said “a good Jew is a dead Jew” or contained other racist statements.

Following the uproar, Twitter agreed to remove all antisemitic tweets.

The court has also ordered Twitter to make it easier for users of its French site to report “illicit content", such as apologies for crimes against humanity and incitement to racial hatred, AP reported.

Twitter is under no legal obligation to comply with the court order because it does not have offices or staff in France.