One hurt in French nightclub shooting over Covid pass

Two men who were refused entry to a French nightclub for producing a fake Covid health pass have been arrested over a shooting at the venue that left one partygoer injured, prosecutors said Sunday.

Published: 17 October 2021 19:34 CEST

A spectator shows his health pass certificate prior to the start of a football match in Paris. People have needed to show a valid health pass to enter certain public venues since July in France. (Photo by GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)

The incident took place on Thursday night in the outskirts of the eastern town of Montbeliard.

“It has been confirmed that one of the men tried to present a health pass that did not match his identity,” the public prosecutor for the area, Ariane Combarel, told AFP.

The pair then left the scene only to return a short while later in a car, from which several shots were fired in the direction of the club, she added.

A man who was enjoying a night out at the club sustained gunshot wounds to the knee, according to regional media.

Combarel said he had required surgery and had been written off work for six weeks.

Since July, people in France have been required to present a Covid-19 pass in order to enter public venues such as restaurants, nightclubs, gyms or cinemas.

The pass, available in paper form or as a QR code on a smartphone, proves the person has been either vaccinated against Covid, recently tested negative for the virus or already had Covid and recovered from it.

Announced by President Emmanuel Macron in July, it prompted millions of people to get the jabs after holding out for months, giving France one of the world’s highest vaccination rates.

But the pass has also drawn controversy, with thousands of people attending weekly protests in cities across France against what they call Macron’s establishment of a health “dictatorship”.

A number of people have attempted to circumvent the rules by buying fake Covid passes on social media or using one belonging to a friend in the hope that they are not asked to produce ID.

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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.