The police shot and killed a person in northern France on Friday after he tried to set hearth to a synagogue within the metropolis of Rouen and attacked officers who tried to cease him, the French authorities stated.
Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen, a metropolis of about 110,000 individuals, advised reporters that firefighters had introduced the outbreak of flames below management and that nobody apart from the assailant had been harmed.
The identification and motives of the person who attacked the synagogue weren’t instantly clear.
The authorities in France have raised the alarm a couple of surge of antisemitic incidents throughout the nation in opposition to the backdrop of the struggle in Gaza. Mr. Mayer-Rossignol stated that the episode was nonetheless being investigated however that “in all chance it’s a deeply antisemitic act.”
Anybody who assaults the Jewish neighborhood, he added, “is attacking all of France.”
Mr. Mayer-Rossignol stated that the police’s preliminary findings have been that the person broke into the synagogue by climbing atop a trash can round 6:30 a.m. He reached the primary ground and threw an “incendiary aspect” inside, beginning a fireplace that triggered “important injury” however didn’t hurt anybody, Mr. Mayer-Rossignol stated.
Firefighters and law enforcement officials shortly arrived on the scene, Mr. Mayer-Rossignol stated. The person got here down from the primary ground and threw a steel bar on the officers and attacked them with a knife. The officers shot again in response, killing the person, Mr. Mayer-Rossignol stated.
Gérald Darmanin, France’s inside minister, stated in a social media submit that law enforcement officials had “neutralized” an “armed particular person who evidently needed to set hearth to town’s synagogue.”
France is on excessive alert over the chance of terrorist assaults and different potential safety threats, particularly within the run-up to the Summer time Olympics in Paris, that are set to begin in July.
The nation was scarred by large-scale Islamist terrorist assaults in 2015 and 2016, and a string of smaller however nonetheless lethal shootings and stabbings in subsequent years have ensured that safety and intelligence forces stay on edge.
The struggle in Gaza and heightened tensions between Israel and Iran have additionally saved the authorities frightened about potential repercussions in France, which is house to a few of Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim populations.
In April, after Iran launched airstrikes in opposition to Israel, Mr. Darmanin ordered elevated safety at synagogues and at Jewish faculties round France.
Gabriel Attal, the French prime minister, stated this month that greater than 360 antisemitic incidents — together with threats, assaults and different acts — had been recorded in France within the first three months of 2024, up 300 p.c from the earlier 12 months.
After the assault in Rouen, Yonathan Arfi, head of the Consultant Council of Jewish Establishments of France, stated in a social media submit, “Setting hearth to a synagogue is an try to intimidate all Jews.”
The assault and capturing in Rouen got here days after a Holocaust memorial was vandalized in Paris. The memorial, a wall of names that honors those that helped rescue Jews in France throughout World Warfare II, was defaced with graffiti of purple fingers.
