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CRIME

Teens charged in France over plot to attack Jewish targets: judicial source

French prosecutors have charged a 19-year-old man and a youth in the Paris region with planning a "terrorist" attack on Jewish targets, a judicial source told AFP on Friday.

This photograph shows the synagogue in the Normandy city of Rouen
This photograph shows the synagogue in the Normandy city of Rouen, where on 17 May, 2024, an armed man attempted to set fire to the building and was subsequently shot dead by police. Two French teens in the Paris region were on Friday charged with planning a "terrorist" attack on Jewish targets. (Photo by Lou Benoist / AFP)

While no details on the pair have been released, French anti-terrorist investigators have expressed increased concern over the young age of some suspects detained in recent months for planning militant attacks.

The 19-year-old has been charged with “terrorist conspiracy” to commit attacks and the “acquisition and possession of arms for a terrorist enterprise,” said the judicial source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

READ ALSO: Anti-Semitism fears stalk Jewish voters’ choice in France

The youth aged under 18 was detained on June 13, the source said.

The pair made contact on social media and were planning a “a violent action notably aiming at Jewish targets,” said the source without giving details on the plot.

Anti-terrorism investigators say a growing number of youths have been held in recent months for preparing attacks.

READ ALSO: French election breakdown: TV debates, polling latest and anti-Semitism

“This is a necessarily worrying phenomenon,” senior anti-terrorist prosecutor Olivier Christen said at an evidentiary hearing on Wednesday.

French politicians have also condemned a growing number of attacks on the country’s Jewish community, the biggest outside Israel and the United States.

Outrage has been expressed over the rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in a park in the Paris suburbs last Saturday. Two 13-year-old boys have been charged with rape and making anti-Semitic insults.

Several protest rallies have been held in Paris and other French cities over the case which comes as France prepares for a national election in which the far-right National Rally party is tipped to make major gains. 

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CRIME

One dead, five injured in France wedding hall attack

One person was killed and five others wounded in northeastern France when several masked gunmen opened fire at a wedding ceremony, police sources said on Sunday.

One dead, five injured in France wedding hall attack

Sources suggested that the attack in the northeastern city of Thionville was linked to a settling of scores between drug traffickers.

The shooting took place at a reception hall overnight Saturday to Sunday, with around a hundred people in attendance.

Two people were seriously injured and one of them was in a critical condition. The perpetrators of the shooting have fled the scene.

“It was during a wedding,” a police source said.

“At a quarter past one in the morning, a group of people went outside to smoke in front of the hall, and then three heavily armed men arrived and opened fire in their direction.”

The assailants arrived in a 4X4 vehicle, “probably a BMW”, the source said.

It was not immediately clear where the vehicle had come from. Thionville is located close to the borders of Luxembourg and Germany.

Members of law enforcement believe that a settling of scores linked to drug trafficking was behind the violence.

“The wedding was not targeted as such, it was people who were at the wedding,” the source said.

A glass door pierced with bullet holes could be seen at the scene on Sunday morning.

In the neighbouring town of Villerupt shootings between rival gangs at a drug dealing point left five people injured in May 2023.

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