French authorities have opened a terrorism investigation after multiple fires were started at a synagogue while people were inside.

Fires were started at two of the entrances at Beth Yaacov synagogue near Montpellier, and two vehicles in its car park were set alight.

The incident happened just after 8am on Saturday, the French anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office said.

A police officer who walked up to the site was injured after a propane gas tank in one the vehicles detonated, the statement said.

Five people who were in the synagogue complex at the time of the attack, including a rabbi, were unharmed, it added.

Prosecutors said a male suspect who was spotted in surveillance videos fleeing the site was carrying a Palestinian flag and a weapon.

They are treating the attack – which happened in La Grande-Motte on the French Mediterranean coast – as an attempted assassination linked to a terrorist group.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said later on Saturday 200 police officers were hunting the suspect.

La Grande-Motte mayor Stephan Rossignol said investigators were reviewing the city’s surveillance videos and a lone suspect was spotted at the site of the attack.

“We don’t know if the individual has left the city or if he is still in the city,” Mr Rossignol said in an interview with broadcaster France Info.

“The individual in question did not manage to get inside the synagogue, even though that was clearly his objective,” he added.

President Emmanuel Macron said the synagogue attack was a “terrorist act” and that “everything is being done to find [its] perpetrator”.

“The fight against antisemitism is a constant battle,” Mr Macron said on X.

Mr Attal added the attack was “an act of antisemitism”, and said: “Once again our Jewish fellow citizens are being targeted.

“Faced with antisemitism, faced with violence, we will never let ourselves be intimidated.”

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Acting interior minister Gerald Darmanin said he has ordered extra police reinforcements to protect synagogues, Jewish schools and shops across the country.

“I want to assure our Jewish fellow citizens of my full support and say that at the request of President Emmanuel Macron all means are being mobilised to find the perpetrator,” Mr Darmanin tweeted.

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