Airports across France were evacuated on Wednesday, October 18, after emailed “threats of attack”, a police source told Agence France-Presse (AFP), the latest in a series of similar alerts. The evacuations at Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Nice, Toulouse, and Beauvais airport near Paris would allow authorities to “clear up any doubts” whether the threats are real, the source said.
A spokeswoman for Strasbourg airport in eastern France also said the site was being evacuated after a “threatening email.” The Palace of Versailles, a major tourist attraction outside Paris, was also evacuated on Wednesday, the third time since Saturday for bomb disposal teams to check the site.
France is on high alert following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and Friday’s fatal stabbing of a teacher in the northern city of Arras by a man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group. A second police source said that Nice, Lyon and Lille airports had resumed normal activity around midday.
A spokesman for France’s DGAC aviation authority confirmed evacuations over bomb warnings only at Lille, Lyon, Toulouse and Beauvais, and was unable to give further details immediately. The DGAC’s online dashboard showed significant delays at Lille, Lyon and Toulouse.
A post on Nice airport’s X (formerly Twitter) account said that “following an abandoned baggage item… a security perimeter was set up to allow the usual checks. The situation has now returned to normal,” it added.
Airport authorities at Lyon’s Bron airport also said the all-clear had been given. In Lille, an airport spokeswoman said three flights had been diverted, while a post on its X account said security forces were on the scene.
Meanwhile, A synagogue in Berlin has reportedly been targeted Wednesday by individuals who threw two Molotov cocktails at it in what a German Jewish group is calling a “terrorist attack.”
The incident at the Kahal Adass Jisroel community drew a strong condemnation from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said, “We will never accept when attacks are carried out against Jewish institutions.”
“Unknown persons threw two Molotov cocktails from the street,” Kahal Adass Jisroel wrote on X. Police said they were investigating “an attempted serious arson” in which two people approached the synagogue by foot at 3:45 a.m. and threw two Molotov cocktails, which burst on the sidewalk next to the building. The two people, their faces covered, ran away.
“We are all shocked by this terrorist attack,” the Central Council of Jews said in a statement. “Above all, the families from the neighborhood around the synagogue are shocked and unsettled. Words become deeds. Hamas’ ideology of extermination against everything Jewish is also having an effect in Germany.”
A couple of hours later, when police were investigating the incident, a 30-year-old man approached the synagogue on a scooter, threw it aside and tried running toward the building. When police officers detained him, he resisted and shouted anti-Israeli slogans.
