French police killed an armed in individual who intended to set a synagogue in the northern city of Rouen ablaze, France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Friday.
“National police in Rouen neutralized early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Darmanin said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
What do we know about the attack on the synagogue?
The Franceinfo broadcaster reported police were called to the scene early on Friday because smoke was billowing form the synagogue.
Local authorities that the man approached police armed with a knife and a crowbar, after which he was shot dead by an officer.
“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol said on X.
He said that there were no victims besides the attacker.
Rouen prosecutors said that they had opened investigations into the fire at the synagogue, as well as a separate probe into the circumstances of the death of the man killed by police.
“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, who heads the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, said in a post on X.
France has the largest Jewish community in Europe.
The country has seen an increase in anti-Semitic incidents since the start of the war between Israel and the Hamas militant Islamist group on October 7.
Earlier this week, red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial, an act described by President Emmanuel Macron as “odious anti-Semitism.”
France recently raised its alert status to its highest level.
This is a developing news story and will be updated.
sdi/ab (AFP, Reuters)
