French police have apprehended a man suspected of terror and trying to set a synagogue burning in the southern French city of la Grande-Motte on Saturday, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin expressed. Nearly 200 police officers had been tracking the suspect, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal stated earlier, adding that the attacker had set fire to several entry gates to the synagogue and several cars nearby.
BFM TV conveyed the suspect was a 33-year-old Algerian. Local police refused to give details.
The anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office, which was placed in charge of the investigation, expressed that a suspect had been captured in Nîmes on Saturday evening.
“Before the police could intervene, (the suspect) opened fire on the (police), which returned fire. The man was wounded in the face,”
the office stated in a statement, adding that two other people were taken into captivity.
A policeman was slightly wounded when a gas bottle exploded as police barricaded the site of the attack on Saturday morning, Attal expressed.
“This is an antisemitic attack. Once more, our Jewish compatriots are targeted,” Attal said on X. “In the face of antisemitism, in the face of violence, we will never allow ourselves to be intimidated.”
After seeing the synagogue, Attal expressed an “absolute tragedy” had been narrowly averted after firefighters and police came quickly to the scene. Local media conveyed earlier that the suspect had set a blaze to two cars, one of which contained at least one gas bottle, in the synagogue’s parking space at about 8:30 a.m. (0630 GMT). Police protection of synagogues, and Jewish schools and shops would be stepped up across France, the government stated.
France, like other nations in Europe, has seen a surge in antisemitic happenings following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel’s retaliatory attack on Gaza. Le Parisien, franceinfo, and other media conveyed the suspect had been caught on CCTV shortly before the attack with a Palestinian flag tied around his waist.
“Exploding a gas bottle in a car in front of the Grande Motte synagogue at the expected time of arrival of the faithful: it’s not just attacking a place of worship, it’s an attempt to kill Jews,”
Yonathan Arfi, who oversees the CRIF, an umbrella organization of French Jewish groups, expressed on X. La Grande-Motte is a dock and resort city on the French Mediterranean coast.
