Tragedy Averted in Marseilles: Powerful Bomb Found in a Crowded Hall Where Children Were About to St

A powerful bomb was placed last night in a crowded Jewish meeting hall in Marseilles where children were about to stage a Purum show. Police experts found and defused the bomb about half an hour before the festivities were to begin. Marseilles police say the bomb, which contained about a pound of powerful explosives, was placed where it “would do most damage,” near the back of the crowded hall.

Marseilles Mayor Gaston Defferre, who was to address the meeting, later said the bomb apparently had nothing to do with the forthcoming French municipal elections, in which Defferre is running, and added: “This is an anti-Semitic attack. The bomb was set to explode in the middle of the Jewish Purim festival and hurt as many people as possible.”

BOMB WAS ‘AIMED AT THE … JEWISH COMMUNITY’

Defferre dismissed police speculation that the bomb was linked either to the forthcoming elections or to Defferre’s crackdown on Corsican extremists in his capacity as Minister of the Interior. He said “the bomb was obviously aimed at the city’s Jewish community.”

A routine police check discovered the bomb in the men’s room at the back of the hall in which over 500 people were expected. At the time, only the organizers, about 30, were inside the building They were evacuated while police experts checked the hall and the building from top to bottom. The Purim children’s evening was organized by the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth Le’Israel) and a local Jewish radio station.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack but police said the explosives were of a type similar to those used by Corsican extremists.