A teenager wielding a machete attacked a Jewish teacher today in the southern French city of Marseille, injuring him slightly in one hand and the back, police said.
"We know that it is a clearly anti-Semitic act, a serious act committed a few dozen metres (yards)" from a Jewish school, police chief Laurent Nunez told reporters.
The attack against the 35-year-old teacher occurred in broad daylight in front of witnesses in the south of the port city, police said.
The teacher was on his way to work at the Franco-Hebraic Institute when the assailant, around 15 years old, attacked him.
The boy then dropped the machete and fled the scene but police apprehended him 10 minutes later.
"The individual did not seem to possess all of his faculties," a source close to the case told AFP.
Another source said: "This is a very excited individual, but one who clearly claims responsibility for his act, which you can describe as anti-Semitic."
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve reacted with a tweet saying: "Support for the victim of the revolting anti-Semitic aggression in Marseille".
The attack came nearly two months after another assault, north of Marseille, in which three people shouting anti-Semitic obscenities and expressing support for the Islamic State group stabbed a Jewish teacher, injuring him in the arms, legs and stomach.
Nunez headed to the institute to offer the government's "solidarity" and its "determination to provide protection" for Jewish schools, which already have police guards at the start and end of each school day.
