French prosecutors probe guns found near Sarcelles synagogue

French anti-terrorist prosecutors opened an investigation after guns were found in a stolen car parked near one of Sarcelles’s synagogues, prompting the evacuation of about 300 people from the Paris suburb on Saturday evening. The vehicle was discovered after authorities received reports of a suspicious car in a busy area that also includes restaurants and a cinema.

The car contained an assault-style rifle and a handgun, along with what Interior Minister Laurent Nunez described as a military-grade weapon. No explosives were found, but bomb-disposal experts still checked the vehicle as police cordoned off the area. Nunez said the motives remained unknown and that the people involved had not been identified. The case was opened on charges tied to forming a terrorist criminal organization and preparing attacks or weapons-related crimes connected to terrorism.

Sarcelles carries particular weight in France’s security picture. The suburb lies about 16 kilometers from central Paris and has long been associated with a large Jewish community. Its postwar growth accelerated in the 1950s and 1960s, when housing estates were built to accommodate Jews who had left Algeria during the war of independence. The town remains one of the most visible Jewish hubs in the Paris region, a fact reinforced last year when the community inaugurated the Centre Béréchit after nearly 20 years of planning. More than 400 people attended that event, alongside figures including Valérie Pécresse, Philippe Court, Joël Mergui, Élie Korchia, Haïm Korsia, Ariel Goldmann and Yonathan Arfi.

The discovery also fit a pattern that has made Sarcelles a recurring focus of concern. The town has faced earlier antisemitic incidents, including a 2018 case in which two teenagers were investigated after an air rifle shot lightly wounded a passerby near the synagogue, and a 2021 episode in which Jewish residents subdued a man suspected of trying to stab three Jews near a synagogue. Other attacks and acts of vandalism have also been recorded over the years.

That history helps explain why a single suspicious vehicle near a synagogue can ripple so quickly through daily life in Sarcelles. Even without explosives or arrests at the scene, the discovery of firearms in a stolen car near a Jewish site forced a rapid security response and once again put the town’s synagogue district under intense scrutiny.