While the level of the terrorist threat is “very high” in France, Gérald Darmanin once again insists on security. In a telegram dated Sunday, the Minister of the Interior asked all prefects for “extreme vigilance” for the Jewish festival of Hanouka, in a context of war between Hamas and Israel in the Middle East.
Starting Thursday, people of the Jewish faith will celebrate Hanukkah, the festival of lights, for eight days until December 15.
An attack in Paris on Saturday evening
Gérald Darmanin asked that “vigilance reinforced by a static presence visible at the times of arrival and departure of the faithful, during gatherings and services” be ensured. The telegram is annotated with a word written in his hand: “Please apply this instruction ad litteram”.
Saturday evening, a radical Islamist killed a young 23-year-old German-Filipino tourist with a knife and hammer and injured two people near the Eiffel Tower. Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, a 26-year-old Franco-Iranian, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in a video published on his X account, which included “numerous publications on Hamas, Gaza and more generally Palestine”, according to the anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-François Ricard.
In France, since October 7, the date of the massive Hamas attack against Israel, more than 1,500 anti-Semitic acts and remarks had been recorded in mid-November, with nearly 600 arrests according to the Ministry of the Interior.