Three hundred people were evacuated Saturday evening from a neighborhood in Sarcelles following a report of a suspicious vehicle parked near a synagogue that was found to contain “a weapon of war,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said Sunday.
Sarcelles is a suburb north of Paris where a large Jewish community lives.
The minister told BFMTV that a criminal investigation had been launched after the discovery of a “military-grade weapon” in the vehicle, which had been flagged by domestic intelligence.
“We do not yet know the motives,” he said, adding that “the individuals have not yet been identified.’’
“While there is no evidence at this stage to classify this incident as terrorism,we’ll have to wait and see what the judicial investigations reveal,’’ the minister added.
A security perimeter had been set up Saturday evening around the car, which was parked in a busy neighborhood of this town in the Val-d’Oise, near a movie theater and
The Great Synagogue of Sarcelles is not far from the street where the car was parked, as reported by the DGSI (General Directorate for Internal Security). After bomb disposal experts searched the vehicle and found no explosives, it turned out that, according to a police source, the car contained an assault-style rifle and a handgun.
The vehicle, described as “suspicious,” was “stolen,” a police source told AFP press agency.
Laurent Nuñez stated that “three attacks” had been “foiled” since the beginning of the year, notably last February’s knife attack on a gendarme under the Arc de Triomphe during the ceremony to rekindle the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.