The police shot and killed a person in northern France on Friday after he tried to set fireplace to a synagogue within the metropolis of Rouen and attacked officers who tried to cease him, the French authorities mentioned.
Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen, a metropolis of about 110,000 individuals, instructed reporters that firefighters had introduced the outbreak of flames underneath management and that nobody aside from the assailant had been harmed.
The identification and motives of the person who attacked the synagogue weren’t instantly clear, however the French authorities have been treating it as an antisemitic act. Native prosecutors have opened an investigation into “religiously motivated arson” and assault.
The authorities in France have raised the alarm a few surge of antisemitic incidents throughout the nation in latest months, towards the backdrop of the war in Gaza. Mr. Mayer-Rossignol mentioned that the episode was nonetheless being investigated however that “in all chance it’s a deeply antisemitic act.”
Anybody who assaults the Jewish group, he added, “is attacking all of France.”
Mr. Mayer-Rossignol mentioned 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 component” inside, beginning a hearth that brought on “vital harm” however didn’t hurt anybody, Mr. Mayer-Rossignol mentioned.
The synagogue is within the historic middle of Rouen, a brief stroll from town’s famed cathedral.
“The fireplace brought on numerous harm,” Natacha Ben Haïm, head of the native Jewish group affiliation, instructed reporters, including that furnishings had burned, partitions had been blackened and elements of the roof had fallen down. “It’s horrible,” she mentioned.
Frédéric Teillet, the highest prosecutor in Rouen, mentioned at a information convention that firefighters and cops who rapidly arrived on the scene noticed smoke popping out of synagogue home windows and a person on the roof with a kitchen knife in a single hand and a metallic chisel within the different.
The person shouted on the officers, threw the chisel at them, jumped down from the roof after which brandished the knife as he ran at one of many officers, ignoring orders to cease, Mr. Teillet mentioned.
The officer fired 5 photographs, 4 of which hit the person, Mr. Teillet mentioned.
Mr. Teillet mentioned that the person had been carrying a neighborhood public transportation cross with a reputation on it however that investigators have been nonetheless verifying his identification.
France is on excessive alert over the chance of terrorist assaults and different potential safety threats, especially in the run-up to the Summer 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 security and intelligence forces remain on edge.
France is at the moment at its highest terror alert stage, which was raised in March after a deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall that was claimed by the Islamic State.
The battle in Gaza and heightened tensions between Israel and Iran have additionally stored the authorities fearful about potential repercussions in France, which is dwelling to a few of Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim populations.
In April, after Iran launched airstrikes against Israel, Mr. Darmanin ordered elevated safety at synagogues and at Jewish faculties round France.
Gabriel Attal, the French prime minister, said 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, mentioned in a social media post, “Setting fireplace to a synagogue is an try and intimidate all Jews.”
The assault and taking pictures 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 pink arms.
Chmouel Lubecki, rabbi on the synagogue in Rouen, told the news channel BFMTV that he had had no information of particular threats towards the synagogue, however he lamented a local weather of “tensions” and mentioned that the fireplace didn’t shock him.
“We had this worry within us, however when it occurs it’s nonetheless stunning,” Rabbi Lubecki mentioned. He urged the Jewish group to mild candles for Shabbat on Friday “to point out that we aren’t afraid and that we’re persevering with to apply our Judaism regardless of the circumstances.”
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