A CCTV video clearly showed an armed man with a Palestinian flag wrapped around his waist set fire to a synagogue in France in what Emmanuel Macron branded a "terrorist attack".
The footage also showed the suspect leaving the Beth Yaacov synagogue in the seaside resort of La Grande-Motte before an explosion rocked the building on 24 August.
Flames can be seen licking the side of the synagogue in the image, which shows the man wearing a keffiyeh with a gun stuffed in his trousers.
He was carrying two plastic bottles of clear liquid in the still, which was obtained by the Le Parisien newspaper.
Macron vowed that police would hunt down the man who tried to blow up the synagogue as security was tightened at Jewish sites across France.
"We’re doing all we can to find the person who carried out this terrorist act and to protect places of worship," the French president said.
"The fight against anti-Semitism is a constant battle," he added.
A policeman was injured in a blast outside the synagogue at 08.30 A.M local time and was rushed to hospital in nearby Montpellier.
Two cars, one of which contained at least one gas canister, were set on fire in the parking lot. Firefighters discovered additional fires at two entrances to the synagogue.
Five people, including the rabbi, who were present in the synagogue complex at the time of the attack were unharmed, the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office said.
Prosecutors were investigating the attack as an attempted assassination linked to a terrorist group and destruction of property with dangerous means, and a crime planned by a terrorist group with an intent to cause harm.