Copernicus Street, Paris, October 3, 1980, synagogue bombed
State Terrorism

On October 3, 1980 a synagogue on Copernicus Street was bombed in Paris. Four bystanders were killed. Nine were injured. The media frenzy which followed the incident was worldwide. Reports held that “right wing extremists” were responsible. Yet, of all of the “right wing extremists” held for questioning, none was arrested. In fact, all were released. In the upper echelons of French intelligence, however, the finger of suspicion was pointed at the Mossad. According to one report: “On April 6, 1979, the same Mossad terror unit now suspected of the Copernicus carnage blew up the heavily guarded plant of CNIM industries at La Seyne-sur-Mer, near Toulon, in southeast France, where a consortium of French firms was building a nuclear reactor for Iraq. “The Mossad salted the site of the CNIM bomb blast with ‘clues’ followed up with anonymous phone calls to police—suggesting that the sabotage was the work of a ‘conservative’ environmentalist Troup—’the most pacific and harmless people on earth’ as one source put it.”