LA GRANDE-MOTTE (France), Aug 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — 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 Gerard Darmanin said on X, adding that officers who made the arrest came under fire.
Police earlier 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 said 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.
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.
President Emmanuel Macron called the incident “an act of terror”, adding on X: “The fight against anti-Semitism is a daily fight.”
France’s interim Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said France’s national anti-terror prosecutors had been tasked with investigating the incident.
The police presence outside Jewish sites in France would be increased following the explosion, Interior Minister Darmanin said.
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, as well as the largest Muslim community in the European Union. — NNN-AGENCIES
