Two hooded men opened fire outside a mosque in the southeastern city of Avignon on Sunday night, police said, amid a heightened sense of fear in France.
A car pulled up at about 10:30 pm local time and opened fire with a shotgun as people were leaving the building, French newspaper La Provence reported.
Eight people, including a 7-year-old girl, were injured in the incident at Arrahma mosque; two were hospitalized.
“From what we know this evening, the mosque was not targeted. The fact that it happened in the street of the religious establishment was unconnected with it,” the prosecutor told French news agency AFP, ruling out terrorism.
The incident comes after a man was arrested on Thursday after trying to drive a car into a crowd in front of a mosque in the Paris suburb of Creteil in an incident in which no one was injured.
France is on high security alert following a series of attacks in recent years.
