French police shot dead a knife-wielding Algerian man who set fire to a synagogue and threatened police in the city of Rouen on Friday in the latest antisemitic attack, officials said, APA reports citing Reuters.
"An armed man somehow climbed up the synagogue and threw an object, a sort of Molotov cocktail, into the main praying room," said mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, adding that nobody else was harmed in the shocked city in the northwestern Normandy region.
Police found the man on the synagogue roof with an iron bar and kitchen knife, shooting him when he defied orders to stop.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the attacker's bid for a residency permit had been recently rejected. He was otherwise not on the radar of police or intelligence services.
Natacha Ben Haim, president of Normandy's Jewish community, said the praying room's walls and a lot of furniture had been blackened by fire and smoke. "It's catastrophic. Yes, I'm upset, I'm very upset," she told reporters.
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