POLICE IN FRANCE are treating an explosion outside a synagogue in the south of the country, which wounded a police officer early on Saturday, as a potential terror attack.
Security around Jewish sites was tightened following the early Saturday blast outside the Beth Yaacov synagogue in the seaside resort of La Grande Motte, near the city of Montpellier.
Two cars outside the synagogue burst into flames after a gas canister likely exploded inside one of the vehicles, police said. The blast wounded a police officer.
A fire was also started at the entrance of the synagogue, but was quickly put out, with two doors damaged, investigators said.
President Emmanuel Macron called the incident “an act of terror”, adding on X that “the fight against anti-Semitism is a daily fight”.
Pensées pour les fidèles de la synagogue de la Grande-Motte et tous les Juifs de notre pays. Tout est fait pour retrouver l’auteur de cet acte terroriste et protéger les lieux de culte.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 24, 2024
La lutte contre l’antisémitisme est un combat de chaque instant, celui de la Nation unie.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said France’s national anti-terror prosecutors had been tasked with probing the incident.
“La Grande Motte’s synagogue was the target of an attack this morning,” Attal said in a post on X. “An anti-Semitic act. Once again, our Jewish fellow citizens are being targeted.”
Earlier, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin called the incident “an obviously criminal act”.
He said “all means are being deployed to find the perpetrator”.
La Grande Motte’s mayor, Stephan Rossignol, said that CCTV had picked up images of an individual setting fire to the cars.
The potential suspect seen in the footage was brandishing a Palestinian flag, a source close to the probe added.
Another source said that the man was carrying two empty bottles and had a Palestinian flag draped around his waist as left the scene on foot.
One of the images also appeared to show him to be armed, possibly with a 9mm pistol, the source added.
The blast occurred during Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest that runs from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday and often when many attend synagogue services.
There was, however, no religious service ongoing at the time of the incident, a police source said.
Two doors of the synagogue were damaged in the blast.
There was no immediate information about the gravity of the police officer’s injuries.
The town near Montpellier has about 8,500 permanent residents but the population swells during the summer tourism season.
The explosion comes amid a heightened state of alert in France and other European countries because of the war in Gaza.
Darmanin said this month that the government had counted 887 anti-Semitic acts in France in the first half of 2024, nearly three times as many as in the same period in 2023.
France is home to the biggest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States, and also to the largest Muslim community in the European Union.
The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) called the explosion “an attempt to kill Jews”.
The use of a gas canister “in a car at a time when worshippers are expected to arrive at the synagogue is not simply a criminal act”, CRIF president Yonathan Arfi told AFP. “This shows an intention to kill.”
Police have locked down the area around the synagogue.
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