Fourteen people were arrested in France after 145 people reported being stabbed with a mysterious syringe containing an unknown substance at a Saturday music festival.

The French Interior Ministry said the needle attacks involved 145 victims, including 13 in Paris. Thousands of people across the country were participating in the Fête de la Musique events.

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“The ministry is taking this very seriously,” a spokeswoman from the Interior Ministry said in a statement. “Some victims were taken to the hospital for toxicological tests, and the investigation is ongoing.”

Police in the city of Metz arrested two people, including a “syringe attacker.” Metz Mayor Francois Grosdidier said, “Risks are always present in wild … However, we had to deal with syringe attacks.” 

Some of the victims included more than a dozen young women between 14 and 20 years old. 

“I hope that the investigation, particularly through the examination of his cell phone, will lead to the identification of other attackers,” Grosdidier said.

French officials did not say if these were cases of “needle spiking,” where syringe attackers inject their victims with date-rape drugs such as Rohypnol.

Dr. Adam Winstock, founder of the Global Drug Survey, which studies drug trends, and a professor at University College London, told the New York Times that needle spiking is a “remarkably rare event.” He noted that some people in France may have reported being spiked as news reports of the stabbings spread.

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“Until there is toxicological evidence, what the story might be is that a group of people pick up on something they heard had happened to someone else,” he said. “Because you feel a sharp prick does not mean you have been injected with a drug.”

In 2022, also at the Fête de la Musique, many people similarly reported being jabbed with a needle, but Minister of Culture Rima Abdul-Malak assured at the time that it was a “psychotic phenomenon rather than a real one.”