2024-08-24 22:35:09
French authorities opened an anti-terror investigation last Saturday into an explosion outside a synagogue in La Grande-Motte, in the south of the country, which left a policeman injured.
Two cars, one with a gas cylinder, were set on fire in front of the Beth Yaacov synagogue in the coastal town, located about 25 km from Montpellier, police said.
After the explosion, a fire also broke out at the entrance to the synagogue, although the flames were quickly extinguished, investigators reported. The two doors of the temple were damaged.
A municipal police officer who responded to the scene of the fire was injured, the mayor of La Grande-Motte, Stéphan Rossignol, told AFP, without giving details of his condition.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, condemned “an act of terrorism” and declared in a message in X that “the fight against anti-Semitism is a daily battle”.
France had “survived an absolute tragedy,” outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who traveled to the town, said this afternoon.
« The first features […] show that the attack was very certain and if the synagogue was full of worshipers at that time […] “There would probably be human victims,” he said.
The authorities requested that security be strengthened around Jewish places of worship.
Rossignol said the images captured by surveillance cameras appear to show someone setting cars on fire.
According to a source close to the case, a suspect is also seen in the shots holding a Palestinian flag.
Another source revealed that the man was carrying two empty bottles and had a Palestinian flag on his hip. He left the place on foot.
One of the images also appeared to be armed, possibly with a 9mm handgun, the source added.
La Grande-Motte has around 8,500 inhabitants, but its population increases during the summer tourist season.
France and other European countries have raised the state of alert since the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip began on October 7.
– “Anti-Semitic act” –
Attal reported that the Office of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor was leading the investigation.
«The synagogue of La Grande-Motte was the target of an attack this morning», he wrote in X. «An anti-Semitic act. “Once again, our fellow Jews are being targeted,” he said.
The explosion occurred in the middle of the Sabbath, a weekly day of rest for Jews, but at that time there were no services, according to a gendarmerie source who is in charge of the investigation.
“Inside the synagogue there were five people, including the rabbi, who were not injured,” the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced that the attack was a “clear criminal act”.
“All means are being deployed to find the person who committed the crime,” he declared, and ordered an increased police presence in all Jewish places of worship in France.
France is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel and the United States, and also the largest Muslim community in the European Union.
The French government counted 887 anti-Semitic acts in the first half of 2024, almost three times more than in the same period of 2023.
The Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) described the explosion as “an attack on Jewish life.”
“Using a gas cylinder in a car at a time when worshipers are expected to arrive at the synagogue is not just arson,” CRIF president Yonathan Arfi told AFP. “This shows intent to kill,” he said.
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