ROUEN, France (AP) — French police shot and killed a person armed with a knife and a steel bar who’s suspected of getting set hearth to a synagogue within the Normandy town of Rouen early on Friday, the most recent obvious act in a typhoon of antisemitism roiling France amid the Israel-Hamas battle. Officials have been alerted early Friday morning that smoke used to be emerging from the synagogue and got here head to head with the person after they were given there, the nationwide police data provider mentioned. It mentioned the person surged towards officials with a knife and a steel bar. An officer opened hearth and fatally wounded the person, police mentioned. Police mentioned they’d now not but known the person. Inner Minister Gerald Darmanin posted at the social media web page X that the armed particular person used to be “obviously in need of to set hearth to town’s synagogue.”
He congratulated officials for “their reactivity and their braveness.”
Tensions and anger have grown in France over the Israel-Hamas battle. Antisemitic acts have surged within the nation, which has the biggest Jewish and Muslim populations in western Europe.Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol mentioned the person is believed to have climbed onto a trash container and thrown “a type of Molotov cocktail” throughout the synagogue, beginning a fireplace and inflicting “vital injury.”
“When the Jewish group is attacked, it’s an assault at the nationwide group, an assault on France, an assault on all French voters,” he mentioned.
“It’s a fright for the entire country,” he added.Frédéric Desguerre, a regional police union respectable, informed broadcaster BFM-TV that the person hurled the steel bar he used to be sporting on the officials and pulled out an extended kitchen knife from one in every of his sleeves.“He moved towards them with a decided air, somewhat violent,” he mentioned.Desguerre, of the Unité police union, mentioned the officer fired 5 photographs after caution the person to prevent transferring.French High Minister Gabriel Attal mentioned this month that the pointy spike in antisemitic acts in France that adopted the Oct. 7 assault via Hamas on Israel has persevered into this 12 months.
Government registered 366 antisemitic acts within the first 3 months of 2024, a 300% building up over the similar length remaining 12 months, Attal mentioned. Greater than 1,200 antisemitic acts have been reported within the remaining 3 months of 2023 — which used to be 3 times greater than in the entire of 2022, he mentioned.“We’re witnessing an explosion of hatred,” he mentioned.___Leicester reported from Paris.
