ROUEN, (France): French police on Friday shot dead an Algerian man armed with a knife and an iron bar who tried to set fire to a synagogue in the northern city of Rouen, adding to concerns over anti-Semitic violence in the country.
The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.
Emergency services were alerted after a fire was detected at the synagogue, with the man spotted on its 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, Rouen prosecutor Frederic Teillet told reporters.
The attacker ran towards one police officer threatening him with a knife. The officer then “shot him five times, hitting him four times”, the prosecutor said. The man died at the scene.
The attack was an “anti-Semitic act against a place that is sacred to the Republic”, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters in Rouen, adding he regretted the “unacceptable, despicable” violence against Jewish people in France.
The man was an Algerian whose application for a residency permit in France for health treatment had been rejected by the authorities, Darmanin said.
He had lodged an appeal against an expulsion order but this had been rejected and he was then wanted by the security forces for deportation, said Darmanin. But he had no record of radicalisation, the minister said.
“If he had been arrested he would have been put into detention ahead of expulsion to his home country,” said Darmanin.
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