BY PHILISSA CRAMERAUGUST 25, 2024 8:28 AM
A man has been arrested in France after a synagogue there was set ablaze early Saturday morning, in at least the
second French synagogue arson in recent months. And police in Germany said they had taken into custody a 26-
year-old Syrian man in connection a stabbing rampage at a music festival that left three dead.
The terror group ISIS claimed responsibility for the Solingen, Germany, rampage, saying on Telegram that the
attack aimed “to avenge Muslims in Palestine.” German police said they could not immediately verify the claim but
were investigating it. The two attacks come amid a spike in antisemitic incidents in Europe and as concerns mount
that Iran and its proxies might target Jews and Israelis in Europe in retaliation for the assassination of Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.
The arson in France took place at Beth Yaacov synagogue in La Grande Motte, a seaside town located in the
country’s south, at 8 a.m. Saturday when the rabbi and a handful of others were present. A man wearing a keffiyeh
and what appeared to be a Palestinian flag tied around his waist was captured on video setting fire to cars outside the
synagogue. Fire set outside the synagogue doors was extinguished, but one car exploded and injured a police officer,
according to local news reports. The alleged attacker was taken into custody after a gunfight overnight.
Hundreds of police officers were mobilized in response to the attack, according to Gabriel Attal, France’s caretaker
prime minister, who visited Beth Yaacov on Saturday. He tweeted that the response “probably avoided an absolute
tragedy.”
Attal, whose father is Jewish, and other French officials have been strenuously seeking to tamp down antisemitism
amid a spike seen during the Israel-Hamas war. In May, police killed a man who allegedly set fire to a synagogue in
Rouen. In June, the country was rocked by an alleged antisemitic gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl.

France’s prime minister, Gabriel Attal, flanked by France’s interior minister, Gerald Darmanin and other lawmakers,
exit the synagogue which was set on fire in La Grande-Motte, Aug. 24, 2024. (Pascal Guyot / AFP via Getty
Images)
“To attack a French person because he is Jewish is to attack all French people,” Attal tweeted after visiting La
Grande Motte. French President Emmanuel Macron commented on the attack there, too, tweeting, “The fight against
antisemitism is a constant battle.”
And Interior Minister Gerard Darmarin, who also visited the site, announced that security would be increased at
synagogues around the country.
Attal is a lame duck after resigning as prime minister following election results last month that left the government
in gridlock while strengthening the position of the far-left party France Unbowed. Many right-wing and centrist
politicians decried antisemitism in their response to the La Grande Motte arson. Jean-Luc Melenchon, France

Unbowed’s leader who is staunchly pro-Palestinian and has said that “antisemitism is residual,” did not mention
Jews specifically in his tweet denouncing the arson, saying, “Intolerable crime. Thoughts for the faithful and
believers thus attacked.”
Yonathan Arfi, president of the French Jewish group CRIF, specifically denounced Melenchon’s party, known by its
French acronym LFI. “Anti-Semitism in keffiyeh. … Hatred of Israel is today, in fact, the main fuel for hatred of
Jews,” he tweeted. “When LFI instrumentalizes the Palestinian cause in an outrageous and mendacious manner and
hystericizes the public debate, it is the French Jews who are directly threatened. These incendiary provocations must
stop!”