In 1980, a synagogue in Paris’s 16th arrondissement was bombed in a terrorist attack. Blamed on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operation, it killed three Frenchmen and an Israeli woman, while wounding twenty others. (The French Prime Minster at the time of the attack, Raymond Barre, made a comment to the effect that the bomb was targeting Jews and instead killed innocent Frenchmen…)

In 2008, Hassan Diab, a Canadian university professor of Lebanese birth, was arrested in connection with the bombings. He had taught courses at the University of Ottawa and at the time was a sociology professor at Carleton. After his arrest he was released on bail with special conditions that would allow him to continue to teach. His extradition to France is currently working its way through the courts, and has been described by a judge as ‘far from a sure thing’.
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