PARIS, 9 October 2004 — Ten people were lightly injured when a bomb exploded outside the Indonesian Embassy in Paris yesterday, breaking windows and damaging vehicles but causing no serious destruction.

Nine of the injured — who included four embassy staff members — were treated for cuts in local hospitals and the tenth was tended at the scene in the exclusive 16th district in the west of the capital.

The explosive device was left on the pavement beneath the Indonesian flag flying from the embassy building on a narrow street corner and went off shortly after 5 a.m. It left a small crater some 50 centimeters wide by 20 centimeters deep.

“It was an explosive device placed in front of the embassy — probably a bomb of medium size which shattered windows up to 30 meters away and damaged several vehicles parked around it,” Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin told reporters at the scene.

“To our knowledge there has been no specific threat (against Indonesian interests) but an inquiry will establish that fully,” he said.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin condemned the bomb blast and vowed that the investigation would be “swift and thorough”.

President Jacques Chirac, who is in Vietnam, sent a “message of support” to Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti, assuring him that “all measures would be taken to investigate this criminal act,” a spokesman said.

Indonesia’s President-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also condemned the attack, saying: “I’m saddened by and condemn the act of violence against our embassy in France. We call on the French government to uphold law and provide further protection for our citizens in France.”

The last known attack on Indonesian interests in Europe occurred in 1975. Moluccan exiles in the Netherlands raided an Indonesian consulate as part of a campaign aimed at forcing the Dutch to support their push for independence from Indonesia.

The group also hijacked a train and took more than 100 children hostage at an elementary school. Nearly a dozen people were killed in the incidents.

Indonesia is home to two separatist rebel armies, one of which — the Free Aceh Movement — has been blamed by authorities for several small bombings in recent years in the country.