According to outgoing Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, the attacker was waiting the worshippers with a hatchet.
Following the attack on the synagogue, a “citizens’ rally” is being organized in Montpellier on Tuesday ‘’to say no to anti-Semitism.’’ Anti-Semitic acts have almost tripled in France since the start of the year, with 887 acts recorded in the first half of the year, compared with 304 during the same period in 2023.
The alleged perpetrator of the terrorist attack on a synagogue in La Grande-Motte, who was arrested on Saturday evening in Nîmes after a brief run, is a 33-year-old Algerian residing legally in France.
La Grande-Motte is a beach resort near the city of Montpellier in souther France.
It took investigators just fifteen hours to find the suspect, whose face was uncovered on CCTV footage as he attempted to set fire to the synagogue shortly before 08:30 on Saturday, just before the start of the morning Shabbat service.
It was an anti-Semitic attack that caused no casualties, but could have turned into an “absolute tragedy” if the worshippers had been on the scene, according to outgoing d Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who came to the scene a few hours after the event. Only five people, including the rabbi, were present in the Beth Yaacov synagogue at the time of the attack. None of them were hurt, as the assailant did not enter the building, where he attempted to set fire to two doors.
According to outgoing Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, the attacker was waiting the worshippers with a hatchet.
He also set fire to two cars in front of the synagogue. A municipal policeman, responding to the fire, was slightly injured by the blast from a gas cylinder.
The man was regularly posting pro-Palestinian messages on social networks.
Perla Danan, a Jewish community leader in the region, expressed her “relief.” “We we are also aware that we were incredibly lucky that the individual made a mistake about the service schedule. We escaped the worst. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning. The danger remains real,” she said.
The suspect, who was wearing a Palestinian flag around his waist, was tracked down in Nîmes. He was arrested in a building in Pissevin, an impoverished district known for drug trafficking.
The man, who appeared to be carrying a handgun in CCTV images, opened fire on RAID elite police officers who had come to arrest him, the national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office, which is handling the investigation, said.
The police officers fired back and the man was wounded in the face, but his life is not in danger.
A total of four people were in police custody as of late Sunday morning. The investigation will now focus on reconstructing the suspect’s modus operandi, motivations and possible accomplices.
Following the attack on the synagogue, a “citizens’ rally” is being organized in nearby city of Montpellier on Tuesday ‘’to say no to anti-Semitism.’’ Anti-Semitic acts have almost tripled in France since the start of the year, with 887 acts recorded in the first half of the year, compared with 304 during the same period in 2023.
They had already risen sharply in 2023, particularly after October 7, according to the Ministry of the Interior, which counted 1,676 over the year, “four times more than in 2022”.
“The fight against anti-Semitism is a constant battle, that of a united nation”, said President Emmanuel Macron on X.
Without explicitly naming any personalities or parties, Gabriel Attal denounced a “climate fuelled by certain people” since October 7, with “a lot of confusion around the conflict which is leading to the fuelling of hatred of Jews in our country”.
The leader of La France insoumise (France Unbowed) partu Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is accused of stirring up anti-Semitism with his anti-Zionist positions, was one of the first to react, denouncing an “intolerable crime”, but without even using the words Jewish or anti-Semitic.