LA GRANDE MOTTE, France (AFP) — Police arrested a man suspected of setting fires and causing an explosion at a synagogue in southern France on Saturday in what officials suspect was a terror attack, the country’s interior minister said.
“The suspected perpetrator of the criminal fires at the synagogue has been detained,” minister Gerald Darmanin said on X, adding that officers who made the arrest came under fire.
Police had said they were hunting for a man who, draped in a Palestinian flag, was believed to have set fires at a synagogue and triggered an explosion that injured an officer in the seaside resort of La Grande Motte.
An official source who asked not to be named told AFP the arrest took place in the nearby town of Nimes. An official in the state prosecution service added that two people associated with the suspect were also detained.
France’s interim Prime Minister Gabriel Attal earlier visited the site of the attack along with Darmanin and said: “We narrowly avoided an absolute tragedy.”
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“Once more, French Jews have been targeted and attacked as a result of their beliefs,” Attal said.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal (C) flanked by France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and French MPs exit the synagogue which was set on fire in La Grande-Motte, France, August 24, 2024. (Pascal Guyot/AFP)
“If the synagogue had been filled with worshippers… there probably would have been human victims.”
Security around Jewish sites was tightened following the attack early Saturday at Beth Yaacov synagogue in La Grande Motte, near the city of Montpellier.
Two cars outside the synagogue were set alight, with a gas canister then likely exploding inside one of the vehicles, police said.
Two fires were also started at the entrance of the synagogue, damaging two doors, but were quickly put out, investigators said.
The wounded police officer had been injured by the blast after rushing to the scene after the fires were started, police said.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the incident “an act of terror,” adding on X: “The fight against antisemitism is a daily fight.”
He said “all means are being deployed” to apprehend the suspect.
Law enforcement officers stand in front of a synagogue following a fire and explosion of cars in La Grande-Motte, south of France, on August 24, 2024. (Pascal GUYOT / AFP)
La Grande Motte’s mayor, Stephan Rossignol, said that CCTV had picked up images of an individual setting fire to the cars.
In part of the footage, watched and authenticated by AFP, a man is seen with a Palestinian flag draped around his waist, his head covered by a red Palestinian keffiyeh.
The man carried two bottles filled with a yellowish liquid. The footage also seems to show the contours of a handgun.
Sources close to the investigation said the suspect left the scene on foot.
The fires and explosion came amid a heightened state of alert in France and other European countries because of the war in Gaza.
France’s Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal (Centre-L) and France’s Interior and Overseas Minister Gerald Darmanin (Centre-R) shake hands with firefighters as they arrive at the site of a fire and explosion of cars at a synagogue in La Grande-Motte, south of France, on August 24, 2024. (Pascal GUYOT / AFP)
‘Antisemitic acts’
Attal said France’s national anti-terror prosecutors had been tasked with investigating the incident.
The premier linked it to a rise in antisemitism since Palestinian terrorist group Hamas triggered the Gaza war with its cross-border attack on Israel on October 7 in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered and 251 were taken hostage.
“We are outraged, revolted and scandalized by this, given that antisemitic acts have increased dramatically, even more so since 7 October,” he said.
The police presence outside Jewish sites in France would be increased following the explosion, Darmanin said.
The blast occurred during Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest that runs from sunset Friday to nightfall Saturday, with many attending synagogue services several times throughout that period.
There was, however, no religious service going on at the time of the incident, a police source said. A rabbi and four other people were inside the synagogue, but all were unharmed, investigators said.
French President Emmanuel Macron reviews troops that will take part in the July 14th Bastille Day parade in Paris on July 2, 2024. (Aurelien Morissard/ POOL/ AFP)
The town of La Grande Motte has about 8,500 permanent residents, but the population swells during the summer tourism season.
Darmanin said this month that the government had counted 887 antisemitic 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, as well as 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.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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