French police shot dead a man armed with a knife and an iron bar who set fire to a synagogue in the Normandy city of Rouen on Friday.
The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, travelling to visit the fire-damaged synagogue, said France was “deeply affected” by what he called an antisemitic act. He said the government was “extremely determined to continue to fully protect Jewish people in France, wherever they are, and Jews should practice their religion without fear”.
Emergency services were alerted at 6.45am after a fire was detected at the synagogue in the city 80 miles (130km) north-west of Paris. The man was spotted on the synagogue roof brandishing an iron bar and a kitchen knife, the prosecutor handling the case said.
Smoke was coming out of one window at the synagogue, the Rouen prosecutor Frederic Teillet told reporters.
The attacker jumped off the roof and ran towards one police officer, shouting abuse and threatening him with a knife. The officer warned him to stop but he continued. The officer then shot him five times, hitting him four times, Teillet said. The man died at the scene.
Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen, said there was extensive damage to the synagogue but no one else was harmed. He said: “An armed man somehow climbed up the synagogue and threw an object, a sort of molotov cocktail, into the main praying room.”
Firefighters arrived at the scene and the blaze was brought under control.
The interior ministry said the attacker was Algerian and was not known to police or flagged as an extremist suspect. In 2022 he had asked for a permit to be in France as a foreigner seeking medical treatment. This request was turned down and an appeal was rejected. The man was subject to an order to be expelled from France.
Tensions have grown in France over the Israel-Gaza war. The number of antisemitic acts has surged in the country, which has the largest Jewish and Muslim populations in western Europe.
The Rouen synagogue’s rabbi, Chmouel Lubecki, said his wife was present at the time of the attack. “We were very scared,” he told BFM TV. His wife “heard gunshots and screams … and then she saw smoke coming from the synagogue, so she immediately went down, she helped the firefighters get in the synagogue”.
He said: “We expected it [attacks], unfortunately,” because of the rise in antisemitism. “We had this fear inside of us, but when it actually happens, it’s still shocking.”
Natacha Ben Haïm, the president of a Normandy Jewish group, said the synagogue’s walls and a lot of the furniture had been blackened by the fire and smoke. “It’s catastrophic. Yes, I’m upset, I’m very upset,” she said.
Elias Morisse, who lives opposite the synagogue, said he heard gunshots and explosions. “I decided to open the shutters of my apartment, and indeed I saw smoke coming from the synagogue, the police, the firefighters and in the street a body – that of the attacker who was shot,” he told Agence France-Presse.
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Mayer-Rossignol said the entire city was “bruised and in shock” and called for a gathering outside the city hall on Friday evening in solidarity against the attack.
Two investigations have been opened, one into the fire and a second into the circumstances of the death of the attacker.
Élie Korchia, the president of France’s Consistoire Central Jewish worshippers’ body, said police had averted “another antisemitic tragedy”.
Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, wrote on X: “Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating antisemitism means defending the republic.”
Earlier this week after red-hand graffiti was painted on to France’s Holocaust Memorial, Emmanuel Macron condemned “odious antisemitism”.
This month the prime minister, Gabriel Attal, said 366 antisemitic acts had been recorded in France in the first quarter of 2024, a 300% increase on the same period in 2023. “No one can deny this wave of antisemitism,” he said.