The country’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the incident was “clearly criminal”
A police officer was injured when a car exploded outside the Beth Yaacov synagogue in the French town of La Grande-Motte on Saturday morning, police have confirmed.
Shortly before the blast, two vehicles had been set alight; one of them reportedly contained a gas canister.
“An attempted arson, clearly criminal, affected the synagogue in La Grande Motte this morning,” France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, adding that all efforts are being made to locate the perpetrator.
The mayor of La Grande-Motte, Stephane Rossignol, said surveillance cameras had captured an individual setting fire to vehicles in front of the synagogue, according to French newspaper Le Figaro.
A police source told the media the suspected perpetrator was seen leaving the area’s premises and was apparently wearing a traditional keffiyeh scarf and carrying a Palestinian flag. He remains at large.
Two doors of the religious building were damaged by the blaze, police told Le Figaro, adding that a team of bomb disposal experts has been deployed to the site.
Darmanin and French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal are expected to travel to the scene of the arson attack later in the day.
