Police have detained a person following an explosion in front of a synagogue in the south of France, acting Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced early on Sunday.
Two doors of the synagogue in La Grande-Motte near Montpellier were set on fire on Saturday morning along with two vehicles in front of the building.
A gas bottle exploded in one of the vehicles. A police officer was injured. The five people who were in the synagogue at the time were unharmed.
According to the broadcaster BFMTV, the suspect was arrested in Nîmes, about 40 kilometres from La Grande-Motte.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the attack “a terrorist act” that a unified France would fight.
“The fight against anti-Semitism is an ongoing battle, the fight of a united nation,” Macron wrote on X. He added that everything would be done to find those responsible.
The incident is being investigated by France’s anti-terrorism public prosecutor’s office.
Acting Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said some 200 police officers and gendarmes were deployed.
“We can assume that we have narrowly escaped an absolute tragedy,” said Attal.
Initial findings suggest that the perpetrator was very determined. If the synagogue had been full at the time of the crime and people had come outside, there would likely have been fatalities, he said.
He described the act as outrageous and pointed to the increasing number of anti-Semitic attacks in France.
Darmanin ordered an immediate increase in the presence of security forces outside Jewish places of worship. He wrote on X of an “apparently criminal attempted arson,” and expressed his full support for the Jewish community.
Attal, writing earlier on X, spoke of an anti-Semitic act: “Once again, our Jewish fellow citizens have been targeted.”
Saturday is the Jewish sabbath and traditionally when people attend religious services.
Yonathan Arfi, chairman of the umbrella organization of Jewish organizations in France, CRIF, wrote that the explosion took place at a time when worshippers were expected to arrive at the synagogue.
“It was not just an attack on a place of worship, it’s an attempt to kill Jews,” he wrote.
