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France is considering canceling the Dakar Rally after a blast seriously injured a French driver in Saudi Arabia, and prosecutors are investigating it as an alleged terrorist attack, the foreign minister said on Friday.
A French prosecutor said on Tuesday that a car bomb had been opened in Jeddah on December 30 for the bombing, and that Philippe Boutron, a 61-year-old driver, had to undergo surgery for serious leg injuries before returning to France.
“Perhaps it was best for us to cancel this sporting event … the question remains open,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told BFM TV, “There was a terrorist attack on Dakar.”
The arduous race, formerly called the Paris-Dakar and now known as the Dakar, followed the route from the French capital to the Senegalese capital Dakar.
But security threats have been looming over North Africa since 2009 in South America and Saudi Arabia since 2020.
The national counter-terrorism prosecutor said in a statement on Tuesday that he had opened an investigation into “several assassination attempts linked to a terrorist group”.
The five occupants of the car, including the driver, were French.
One of the passengers, driver Thierry Richard, told the AFP news agency on Tuesday that he had no doubt that the car had been hit intentionally.
“It was an attack, they blew us up,” he said, adding that he felt the incident was “like something in a war scene.”
The impact of the blast lifted the car from the ground and immediately set it on fire, Richard said.
“We’re not stupid, we know what an explosion is like,” he said.
Boutron’s son said his father was released from a coma on Thursday, though both legs were “seriously injured.”
France has warned Saudi Arabia to use “the utmost vigilance – security risk” after the blast.
“The possibility of a criminal act has not been ruled out,” the ministry said in its updated guidelines on its website.
France is investigating crimes against its citizens abroad.
The leader of the Dakar Rally ruled out the end of the ongoing competition in Saudi Arabia after the explosion.
Franceinfo radio’s Dakar director David Castera said on his website that “the question is not raised at the moment” and that the Saudi authorities have put in place sufficient security measures to ensure the safety of the rally.
“At all costs?”
But in France, the media and politicians have questioned the Saudi authorities and race organizers that the blast was not the result of any criminal activity.
“Will Dakar be taken at all costs, despite very strong suspicions that there was an attack,” the Liberation newspaper asked, noting that the organizers were “very close” to the incident.
Senator Jean-Pierre Sueur, a member of the opposition Socialist Party and a former minister, has asked Le Driani to explain how strong the government continues to seek answers from Saudi Arabia and race organizers.
In a statement, Sueur told Le Driani “whether he could explain the reasons for keeping the incident a secret” and asked French counter-terrorism investigators if the Saudis would be allowed to fully investigate the incident.
In Friday’s interview, Le Drian called for “as much transparency as possible” for Saudi Arabia.
He said French interests had been targeted by “terrorist acts” in the past.
In October 2020, a guard at a French consulate in Jeddah was injured in a knife attack. Two weeks later, two people were wounded in connection with the anniversary of the end of World War I in an attack on a gathering of foreign diplomats, including the French.
The final stage of this year’s race will take place on January 14th.
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