Fake bomb found near French Jewish institution

Police destroyed a fake explosive device found near a Jewish institution in the French city of Lyon.

A store owner told police on Tuesday morning that while walking past the city’s Hillel Center, he found a contraption made of three metal cylinders connected with metal wires to what looked like a cellular phone, according to a report on the incident by the SPCJ security unit of France’s Jewish communities.

Police evacuated the residents from nearby buildings before destroying the object, which according to the 20minutes.fr news website was not a bomb.

“Whoever placed this did everything they could to make us believe this was a bomb,” a city official was quoted as saying.