On 3 October 1980, a bomb exploded outside the rue Copernic synagogue in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France, during Shabbat services.

French investigators later attributed the attack to the Palestinian militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

According to the police investigation, saddlebags packed with 10 kilograms of explosives were left on a Suzuki motorcycle parked in front of the synagogue.

Hilario Lopes-Fernandez, a Portuguese housekeeper of the Victor Hugo Hotel, located almost in front of the temple, was seriously wounded and died of her injuries two days later.

Simone Veil, then President of the European Parliament, participated in the solidarity marches, but the crowd's anger at her perceived support for the government forced riot police to take her to safety.

Many Jews blamed the government of President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, which they perceived as too soft on Palestinian terrorists and far-right extremism.

[5] On 5 October, Jewish demonstrators attempted to storm the Élysée Palace and the Ministry of the Interior, clashing with riot police.

[7] Long-simmering dissatisfaction from the increasingly vocal 700,000-person Jewish community in France about the anti-Israel tilt of Giscard's policies and his government's tepid response to the synagogue bombing may have contributed to his loss in the 1981 presidential election.

But a few months after his election, he dispatched his Foreign Minister Jean Sauvagnargues to meet with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat.

In 1977, his government approved the release of Palestinian militant Abu Daoud, the mastermind of the 1972 Munich massacre.

A number of potential suspects were investigated, including Spanish neo-Nazis, Libyans, Palestinian nationalists, and the French extreme right.

[5] Police initially sought two Cypriot suspects, Alexander Panadryu and Joseph Mathias, but the investigation did not progress at the time.

[9] French investigators later attributed the attack to the Palestinian militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The prosecution's case rested largely on intelligence reports and a passport allegedly used by Diab to travel to Spain, from where the PFLP was said to have launched the attack.