Although authorities haven’t yet identified the attacker, they are investigating the attack as a ‘terrorist’ incident. In the below video, CCTV shows him wearing Palestinian headgear and a Palestinian flag wrapped around his waist.

Le Monde French authorities on Saturday, August 24 opened a terrorism investigation after an arson attack on a synagogue in a southern French town injured a police officer and security forces searched for a suspect.

Two cars parked at the Beth Yaacov synagogue complex in the seaside resort town of La Grande Motte near Montpellier were set ablaze just after 8 am on Saturday, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.

Firefighters discovered additional fires at two entrances to the synagogue. A police officer who walked up to the site was injured after a propane gas tank in one of the vehicles detonated, the statement said. Five people, including the rabbi, who were present in the synagogue complex at the time of the attack were unharmed, it added.

Prosecutors were investigating the attack as an attempted assassination linked to a (Muslim) terrorist group and destruction of property with dangerous means, and a crime planned by a terrorist group with an intent to cause harm, the statement said.

President Emmanuel Macron said the synagogue attack was a “terrorist act” and assured that “everything is being done to find [its] perpetrator.” “The fight against antisemitism is a constant battle,” Macron said on X.

Acting Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said the synagogue was targeted in the attack that he called an “an act of antisemitism.” “Once again our Jewish fellow citizens are being targeted,” Attal said in a post on X. He added: “Faced with antisemitism, faced with violence, we will never let ourselves be intimidated.”

h/t Nita