Photo: Pascal Guyot Agence France-Presse At least two cars, including one containing a gas bottle that exploded, were set on fire early Saturday outside a synagogue in La Grande-Motte, southern France.
Published at 12:28 Updated at 14:22
An attack targeted a synagogue in the south of France on Saturday where a suspect carrying a Palestinian flag lit several fires and caused an explosion, with Emmanuel Macron denouncing a “terrorist” act and anti-Semitism.
At least two cars, including one containing a gas bottle that exploded, were set on fire around 8 a.m. (2 a.m. in Quebec) in front of this place of worship in the seaside resort of La Grande-Motte, which has a population of 8,500, slightly injuring a municipal police officer who had been called by residents.
“Inside the synagogue, there were five people, including the rabbi, who were not injured,” said the national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office (Pnat) in a press release, which has opened an investigation into attempted terrorist assassinations.
In a video surveillance image authenticated by AFP, a suspect, his face uncovered, is wearing a Palestinian flag around his waist, from which protrudes what appears to be the butt of a handgun. He wears a red keffiyeh and holds in each hand a plastic bottle filled with a yellowish liquid.
According to sources close to the investigation, he then left the scene on foot, running.
Photo: Agence France-Presse CCTV footage shows a suspect leaving the scene on foot after the explosion, a Palestinian flag around his waist and empty bottles in his hands.
“Everything is being done to find the perpetrator of this terrorist act,” reacted French President Emmanuel Macron, as the country prepares to host the Paralympic Games. “The fight against anti-Semitism is a constant battle,” he added on X.
France has “escaped an absolute tragedy,” assured Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who went to La Grande-Motte.
Photo: Pascal Guyot Agence France-Presse French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin spoke to journalists on Saturday in front of the synagogue targeted by an attack on Saturday in La Grande-Motte.
“The first elements, particularly from video surveillance, show that the attacker was extremely determined and that if the synagogue had been full of worshipers at that time, […] there probably would have been human victims,” he said.
“Once again, French Jews have been targeted, attacked, because of their beliefs,” added Mr. Attal. “This outrages us, it revolts us, it scandalizes us,” he insisted, denouncing in passing “a climate fueled by some” since October 7 and the unprecedented attack by Hamas against Israel, followed by Israeli military operations and bombings in Gaza.
The government has regularly denounced the resurgence of anti-Semitic acts in France, home to the largest Jewish community in Europe, since the attack carried out by the Islamist movement Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023 and the start of the war in Gaza.
The attack on the Beth Yaacov synagogue occurred in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly day of rest in the Jewish religion, but there was no service in progress at the time of the events.
“There could have been a lot of people [because] in the summer, there are a lot of vacationers in La Grande-Motte and on the coast who come to pray here,” Perla Dana, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions (CRIF) of the Occitanie region, told AFP. With 8,500 inhabitants in winter, the seaside resort has nearly ten times that number in summer.
The president of the national authorities of the CRIF, Yonathan Arfi, strongly denounced “an attempt to kill Jews”.
“Using a gas canister in a car at a time when we think worshipers are arriving at a synagogue is not simply arson,” he told AFP.
The attack has sparked numerous political reactions in a country in full political turmoil. For six weeks, a resigned government has been managing current affairs and Mr Macron is under pressure from all sides to appoint a new prime minister.
The leader of the National Rally (far right), Marine Le Pen, denounced the “rise of anti-Semitism” while the leader of La France Insoumise (LFI, radical left), Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose movement is accused by its adversaries of stirring up anti-Jewish hatred, spoke of an “intolerable crime”.
Anti-Semitic acts have almost tripled since the beginning of the year, with “887 incidents” recorded in the first half of the year, the Interior Ministry said on Friday, August 9, compared with 304 during the same period in 2023.
They had already increased sharply last year, particularly after October 7 — the date of Hamas’ bloody attack on Israel, followed by the deadly response of the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip — according to the Interior Ministry, which recorded 1,676 over the year, “four times more than in 2022.”
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