French President Emmanuel Macron called Saturday’s attack on a synagogue in southern France “an act of terrorism” that would combat a united France.
“The fight against anti-Semitism is an ongoing fight, the fight of a united nation,” Macron wrote on X, adding that everything would be done to find those responsible.
Following the explosion at a synagogue in La Grande-Motte, a town on the Mediterranean coast near Montpellier, the public prosecutor’s office for counter-terrorism said it was taking over the investigation and would look into attempted manslaughter with a terrorist link, vandalism using dangerous means and terrorist links.
According to acting Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, the search for the fugitive perpetrator was still ongoing in the evening.
About 200 police officers and gendarmes have been deployed.
“We can assume that we narrowly escaped an outright tragedy,” Attal said.
Initial findings indicate that the perpetrator was very determined. If the synagogue had been full at the time of the crime and people had come out, there would probably have been deaths, he said.
He called the act scandalous and pointed to the increasing number of anti-Semitic attacks in France.
At the time, there were five people in the synagogue, including the rabbi. According to the anti-terrorism prosecutor, they were unharmed.
Two cars were initially set on fire in front of the synagogue in La Grande-Motte, a Mediterranean coastal town near Montpellier.
A gas cylinder exploded in one of the vehicles, a spokesman for the gendarmerie, a branch of the armed forces responsible for internal security in some areas, said. One police officer was injured. No one in the building was hurt.
Two doors of the synagogue were also set on fire. It is unclear whether this happened before or after the explosion.
“Initial investigations show that the perpetrator was carrying a Palestinian flag and a weapon,” the Public Prosecution Service said.
Acting French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin ordered an immediate increase in the presence of security forces outside Jewish places of worship. He wrote on X of an “apparently criminal attempt at arson” and expressed his full support for the Jewish community.
Attal previously spoke in X of an anti-Semitic act: “Our Jewish fellow citizens are once again the target.”
Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath and traditionally the day when people attend religious services.
Yonathan Arfi, president of the umbrella organization of Jewish organizations in France, CRIF, wrote that the explosion occurred at a time when worshipers were expected to arrive at the synagogue.
“It was not just an attack on a house of worship, it was an attempt to kill Jews,” he wrote.
Attal and Darmanin are expected to arrive at the scene of the attack this afternoon.
