Two killed in shooting in France’s Marseille

A woman and a man, both in their twenties, were killed in a shooting late Saturday in French Mediterranean city Marseille and three others hurt, prosecutors told AFP.

Published: 12 November 2023 15:42 CET

A police car drives down the street in France. Two people were killed in a shooting in Marseille's 16th district on Saturday 11th November, 2023. (Photo by OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE / AFP)

“The five people were in their car in the car park of a McDonald’s when a vehicle pulled up alongside, killing the 22-year-old male driver and the 25-year-old female front passenger with bursts of fire from a Kalashnikov” assault rifle, the city’s chief prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said Sunday.

Of the three wounded passengers in the rear — two men and one woman — two were seriously hurt, they added.

All three men in the car were known to police for involvement in the drug trade and violence in the region around the southern city of Toulon, Bessone said, while the women had no criminal record.

“The profile of these individuals allows us to see we are in the context of ‘narcohomicides’… which may have a very strong link to drug trafficking,” Bessone later told a press conference.

The shooting took place just before 11:00 pm (2200 GMT) in Marseille’s 16th district, one of the poorest areas of France’s second-largest city.

Police are investigating for murder and attempted murder as part of a criminal gang.

One of the wounded men, a 29-year-old struck in the chest by bullets, had been in danger for his life but is now “doing better”, Bessone told reporters.

Meanwhile the woman lost her thumb and the third rear passenger, a 19-year-old man, received only light injuries.

Police found shell casings from the 7.62-millimetre ammunition used in Kalashnikov rifles at the scene.

A vehicle that “likely” belonged to the shooters was found burned out close to the site of the attack, prosecutors said.

Marseille has in recent years seen mounting violence related to trade in illegal drugs.

More than 45 people have been killed in related violence in the city in this year alone.

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“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.