Man held for theft of rocket launchers from French train

French police have charged a 23-year-old man in southern France for allegedly stealing army rocket launchers and a stock of armour-piercing shells off a freight train, a source close to the case said Saturday.

Published: 2 July 2017 10:32 CEST

Man held for theft of rocket launchers from French train

The train was travelling from this military ammunition camp in Miramas when the weapons were stolen. File photo: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP

The theft happened at the end of June as the train travelled between an army logistics base in Miramas near Marseille and another base in Brienne-le-Chateau, 200 kilometres (125 miles) east of Paris, the source said.

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Investigators found that the weapons were inside cases that were “neither sealed nor secured”.

Four rocket launchers and four cases of armour-piercing shells were taken, the French daily Le Parisien reported.

Authorities quickly identified the alleged perpetrator, a habitual freight train thief who was arrested at his home in Miramas, where the stolen weapons were also found.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the man just happened upon the artillery or if he specifically trying to get his hands on such weapons.

The defence ministry has launched an internal probe into “the conditions of the transport of munitions by freight rail” and will “propose measures… to reinforce their security,” a government source said.

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This is not the first time a large quantity of army weapons has been stolen in France.

In July 2015, thieves broke into the Miramas base and stole at least 150 detonators and a stock of plastic explosives.

In September 2016, cases containing handgun components were stolen from the Istres military base in southeast France. Four people, including a master corporal, were charged with the theft.

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.