The Borneo Post

France arrests two over attack plot days before vote

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Police arrested two men in Marseille Tuesday on suspicion of planning an ‘imminent’ attack, finding guns, explosives and an Islamic State jihadist flag just days before the first round of France’s presidenti­al election.

The foiled plot sparked fears that the closing days of the campaign could be a target for extremists ahead of Sunday’s vote, the country’s most unpredicta­ble election in decades.

Elite police and intelligen­ce agents detained the two Frenchmen – identified by sources as 23-yearold Clement Baur and Mahiedine Merabet, 29 – in the Mediterran­ean port city and Interior Minister Matthias Fekl said they were known to be “radicalise­d”.

While searching the suspects’ shared Marseille apartment, authoritie­s uncovered an arsenal including a loaded Uzi submachine gun, two loaded pistols, three kilos of TATP explosives and a homemade grenade as well as the flag of the IS group, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters.

The men both have criminal records and are suspected of plotting “an imminent, violent act on French soil, though we don’t know precisely the day, the target or targets,” Molins added.

Merabet was trying to contact IS to pass them “a video pledging allegiance or claiming (an attack)”, the prosecutor said, adding both suspects were on a French watchlist of extremists.

A video intercepte­d last week included images of a newspaper front page that bore the image of a presidenti­al candidate whom Molins did not identify.

Despite officials giving no indication of who the men were targeting, the campaign team of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen linked the arrests to her planned campaign visit to Marseille on Wednesday.

“The fact that the two individual­s were arrested in Marseille as Marine Le Pen was preparing to hold a meeting the following day is perhaps not a coincidenc­e,” a member of her entourage said.

Photos of the two suspects were distribute­d last week to the security teams for Le Pen and centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron.

Conservati­ve candidate Francois Fillon was also warned about the danger last week, an aide said.

France remains under a state of emergency after being the repeated target of jihadist attacks that have killed more than 230 people since January 2015.

In the deadliest attack, IS gunmen and suicide bombers slaughtere­d 130 people in Paris in November 2015.

Candidates have been heavily guarded during the election campaign, but so far there have been few security scares.

The presidenti­al race has narrowed with just days to go, with the pack closing behind frontrunne­rs Macron and Le Pen.

For weeks, centrist former banker Macron and National Front leader Le Pen have been in front but opinion polls now show any of the four leading candidates could reach the May 7 run-off.

Scandal-plagued Fillon and farleft firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon have closed the gap dramatical­ly in the last two weeks.

“We have never seen a four-way contest like this in the first round of a presidenti­al election,” Frederic Dabi of the Ifop polling institute told AFP.

“There has been a real tightening of the race with four candidates between 19 per cent and 23 per cent.”

Macron and Le Pen are tied on 22-23 per cent, with Fillon improving to around 21 per cent and Melenchon surging as high as 20 per cent in some polls.

With Le Pen expected to reach the second round, polls continue to indicate that whoever faces her will win, although after Brexit and Donald Trump’s US presidenti­al election victory, no one is taking anything for granted.

 ?? — Reuters photo ?? French police and members of special police units RAID conduct an investigat­ion after two Frenchmen were arrested in Marseille, France, for planning to carry out an ‘imminent and violent attack’ ahead of the first round of the presidenti­al election on...
— Reuters photo French police and members of special police units RAID conduct an investigat­ion after two Frenchmen were arrested in Marseille, France, for planning to carry out an ‘imminent and violent attack’ ahead of the first round of the presidenti­al election on...
 ?? — AFP photo ?? This combinatio­n of two handout pictures released by the French police shows Clement B (left) and Mahiedine M (right) arrested in Marseille, southern France.
— AFP photo This combinatio­n of two handout pictures released by the French police shows Clement B (left) and Mahiedine M (right) arrested in Marseille, southern France.

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