French police search for gunmen after shootings in Paris suburb

French police were searching for gunmen after three people were killed in drug-related shootings in the Paris suburb of Sevran over the weekend.

Published: 6 May 2024 16:13 CEST

Police officers examining the scene where two men were shot dead, in Sevran, northern Paris

Police at the scene where two men were shot dead, in Sevran, northern Paris. (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)

Two men were shot dead near a cultural centre in the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb, to the northeast of the French capital on Sunday evening, less than 48 hours after another fatal shooting nearby, according to authorities.

The victims of Sunday’s shooting were aged 35 and 31 and known for violence and drug trafficking, according to police sources.

One was shot in the head, with two suspects fleeing on foot, leaving the magazine of an automatic weapon and 18 spent bullet casings behind them.

The second man was hit six times.

The town of 52,000 people was on edge, mayor Stephane Blanchet told AFP, saying people were living in fear of another shooting.

“There is a huge feeling of fear, that it could start again and [that someone could be hit by] a stray bullet,” Blanchet said.

“If it had been a beautiful sunny day, there would have been more people outside,” when the latest shooting happened, he said.

In the first shooting, a 28-year-old man was killed on a nearby housing estate early on Saturday, with three others wounded.

In March, French President Emmanuel Macron announced an ‘XXL’ cleanup of drug trafficking in the southern port city of Marseille and other towns across France, including Sevran, where the drugs trade has been blamed for a spate of death and violence.

One drug dealing hotspot in Sevran was ‘eradicated’ in that operation, police said.

“We are aware that when we do that, we destabilise traffic, we create greed and sometimes there are clashes,” Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said on Sunday.

“But we will still continue,” he added.

Local La France insoumise MP Clementine Autain accused the government of abandoning some areas, and said the suburb, “did not have the police presence of other areas”.

Drug-related violence has often flared in Sevran – considered a hub of drug trafficking in France – with the then-mayor calling for UN peacekeepers to be deployed there in 2011.

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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.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.