Migrant dies from gunshot wound in northern France

A migrant found shot in northern France died of his wounds overnight, prosecutors said on Sunday, with a second person injured.

Published: 4 February 2024 15:01 CET

A photograph showing a flashing light with a sign reading police on a police car in France. A migrant found shot in northern France died of his wounds overnight, prosecutors said on Sunday. (Photo by Pascal GUYOT / AFP)

The fatally wounded man was “found, still alive, on the side of the A16 road near the town of Grande-Synthe,” said Charlotte Hutet, prosecutor in adjacent Dunkirk.

“This man was living in a migrant camp near to the spot where he was found” at Loon-Plage, she added, saying his identity had yet to be confirmed.

He had been shot in the chest, a police source said.

The second person, a 33-year-old Iraqi also believed to be living in the camp, was wounded in the hand, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Police opened an investigation into the shooting.

Up to 600 migrants currently live in camps around Dunkirk, according to Claire Millot of the Salam aid group.

The area has long been a jumping-off point for people attempting irregular crossings to Britain, which has poured resources into police cooperation with France in a bid to halt arrivals.

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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.