18 April 2017•Update: 18 April 2017
By Hajer M'tiri
PARIS
Two French men were arrested in Marseille on Tuesday morning for allegedly planning a terror attack in France just a few days before the presidential election, Interior Minister Matthias Fekl announced on Tuesday.
"This morning between 10 and 11 a.m. [0800 and 0900GMT], the police of the DGSI [French intelligence agency] proceeded with the support of the RAID [elite police] to arrest in the 3rd arrondissement of Marseille two men suspected of a certain and imminent terrorist act," Fekl told a press conference in Paris.
Fekl said the two suspects, aged 23 and 29, were French nationals. The men had been "radicalized" and were known to the French intelligence services, he added.
They allegedly intended to commit an attack “on French soil in the very near future, that is to say in the next few days," he said.
The Paris prosecutor's office launched a probe, Fekl added.
Molins later told a press conference the two men were planning a “violent” and “imminent” attack on French territory, adding it was not however possible to determine with precision the date or the target.
Molins said a Daesh flag and propaganda videos had been found at the home of one of the men, while the other was thought to have had links to a Belgian “jihadist cell”.
He explained the two suspects had met while sharing a cell in prison and were known to police as radicalized.
The Paris chief prosecutor added that a machine gun, two handguns and three kilograms of triacetone triperoxide (TATP) explosive were seized at one of the men’s apartments.
The two-round French presidential election is set to take place on April 23 and May 7.
Fekl had earlier said that 50,000 officers would be mobilized across the country's 67,000 polling stations.
France has been on high alert in the wake of several terror attacks in recent years.
