A French police officer was wounded on Saturday in a bombing outside the Beth Yaakov synagogue in the seaside resort town of La Grande-Motte, close to Montpellier in southern France.

Two vehicles were found at the scene engulfed in flames, according to the European Jewish Press. Worshipers had not yet arrived at the house of prayer for Shabbat services when the blast occurred.

The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) said the incident showed “an attempt to kill Jews.”

The use of a gas canister “in a car at a time when worshipers are expected to arrive at the synagogue is not simply a criminal act,” CRIF president Yonathan Arfi told Agence France-Presse.