PARIS
Five Russian nationals of Chechen origin have been arrested in France on suspicion of preparing a "terrorist attack", according to French officials.
Police said on Tuesday that weapons were seized as the arrests took place in an overnight raid in Beziers, 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the city of Montpellier in southern France.
The Russian embassy in Paris told Russian news agency RIA Novosti that it had no information to date concerning the arrests.
The Chechens are suspected of hiding a cache of explosives found near the Sauclieres football stadium in Beziers, according to the daily newspaper Midi Libre in Montpellier.
The arrests come nearly two weeks after the killing of 12 people at the Paris headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo by brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, and the deaths of a policewoman and four Jewish customers in a kosher supermarket in the French capital at the hands of Amedy Coulibaly.
The Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly were all killed in shoot-outs with police and security forces on Friday, Jan. 9.
French police have arrested about 12 people in the aftermath of the Paris attacks of suspicion of providing "logistical support" to the Kouachi brothers.
The arrests linked to the Charlie Hebdo attack were made in a region south of the French capital including Montrouge, where 27-year-old policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe was shot dead by Coulibaly.
