French police thwart 'imminent' terror attack ahead of presidential election

Jessica Morgan18 April 2017

French police arrested two suspected radicals said to be preparing an "imminent" attack to coincide with the country's first round of Presidential elections.

Police had been hunting the pair since the end of last week and they were arrested a few minutes apart in the southeastern port city of Marseille, police sources said.

Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, French interior minister Matthias Fekl said: “These two radicalised men, born in 1987 and 1993, of French nationality, intended to commit in the very short-term – by that I mean in the coming days – an attack on French soil.”

Mr Fekl said police were carrying out searches and that security surrounding the elections and the candidates had been strengthened.

France votes on Sunday in the first round of its two-stage election, with security ramped up for the ballot after a series of attacks in recent years that have made security one of the major issues of the campaign.

The men, both French, one born in 1987 and the other in 1993, are "suspected of wanting to commit, in an imminent way, a violent action on the eve of the French presidential election," French interior minister Matthias Fekl said.

He gave no details about potential targets or motives.

Agents from the French internal security agency, backed by elite police units, conducted the arrests.

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