French authorities increased security around Jewish and other religious sites after attacks on a Jewish grocery store and a synagogue, news reports said.
President Francois Hollande announced that he is increasing security at religious sites and will introduce stronger anti-terrorism laws in parliament.
He met with Jewish leaders in Paris on Sunday, saying the state is fully mobilized to fight what he calls the scourge. He blamed the attacks on a cell of Islamic extremists.
The president called for respect for all religions.
On Saturday evening, blank bullets were fired from a car at a synagogue in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil while worshippers were inside the building.
Earlier on Saturday, police raids outside Paris, Cannes and Strasbourg led to a series of arrests in connection with what the state prosecutor described as a suspected radical Islamist cell.
The main target in the raids was a 33-year-old man in Strasbourg whose DNA was found on a grenade used in a daylight attack on a Jewish kosher grocery store in Sarcelles, north of Paris, last month.
When police arrived to arrest him before dawn on Saturday, he opened fire with a handgun and was shot dead by officers.
Paris prosecutor François Molins said the police searches had found Islamist literature and a list of Jewish associations in the Paris area. The suspects were French and recent converts to Islam. He said investigators were looking at whether the cell had been preparing to carry out attacks.
Hollande warned that France’s Muslim community must not be tarnished or stigmatised by the arrests. “They must not suffer, they are also victims of radical Islamism,” he said. French Muslim organisations denounced the synagogue attack.
Interior minister Manuel Valls warned of terrorist networks “in our neighbourhoods”.
“This isn’t about foreigners, it’s about converted French people or French Muslims. But let’s not confuse these people with the Muslim community in France,” he said.
Richard Prasquier, the president of France’s leading Jewish group, CRIF, warned French authorities against complacency before what he called the “monstrous ideology” of radical Islamists, comparing it to Nazism.
Sources
AP/Newsday
The Guardian
VOA News
Image: AP/Newsday