France president meets Jewish leaders after blank bullets fired at synagogue by Paris

Shots fired after Paris prosecutor announced the arrests of suspects in the recent bombing of a Jewish store; Hollande meeting with Jewish leaders.

By The Associated Press and JTA | Oct.07, 2012 | 12:13 PM |  1

French President Francois Hollande is meeting with leaders of the country’s Jewish community Sunday after blank bullets were fired on a synagogue west of Paris, and amid renewed concerns about anti-Semitism in France.

A representative of the synagogue in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil says the building was targeted Saturday night and services were cancelled. The representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity because a police investigation is under way, said no one was hurt in the incident.

According to the security unit of France’s Jewish communities, SPCJ, the shots were fired hours after the city’s chief prosecutor gave a news conference detailing the arrests of suspects in the recent bombing of a Jewish store.

Hollande is meeting Sunday with Jewish community leaders Richard Prasquier and Joel Mergui.

Police carried out raids across France on Saturday after DNA on a grenade that exploded last month at a kosher grocery store led them to a suspected jihadist cell of young Frenchmen recently converted to Islam.

One of the raids, in Strasbourg, ended in the fatal shooting of a suspect in his thirties after he opened fire on police.

At Argenteuil, police found nine blanks after members of the congregation reported the shooting to the police and SPCJ.

A representative of the synagogue in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil says the building was targeted Saturday night and services were cancelled. The representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity because a police investigation is under way, said no one was hurt in the incident.

French police have meanwhile arrested an eleventh man whom they say may have been connected to a domestic terrorist cell of alleged jihadists, suspected of involvement in the bombing of a kosher supermarket in Sarcelles, home to a large Jewish community that emigrated from North Africa in the 1960s, on Sept. 19.

Two men dressed in black were seen throwing an explosive device into the store. It produced a “weak explosion,” according to French police, in which one man sustained minor injuries.

Police are still searching for a twelfth suspect.