Terror suspects arrested ahead of first round of French election
● Alleged radicals suspected of preparing an ‘imminent’ attack
French police arrested two suspected radicals who were allegedly preparing an “imminent” attack in France as it prepares to vote this weekend in the first round of its presidential election.
French interior minister Matthias Fekl said at a brief news conference that the arrests took place in the southern city of Marseille.
He said those arrested were suspected of preparing an attack in the coming days.
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,” the minister said.
He gave no details about potential targets or motives. Searches are also under way, Mr Fekl said.
Meanwhile, far right candidate Marine Le Pen is promising a freeze on long-term visas as soon as she takes office, followed by a tax on any company that hires foreign workers.
Ahead of Sunday’s firstround election, Le Pen said she would issue an order to immediately stop issuing long-term visas so the government can verify that they are not taking jobs away from French citizens.
Ms Le Pen, who has campaigned against immigration and Europe’s open borders, also wants to impose a 10 per cent tax on labour contracts that go to foreigners and seize back control of France’s borders.
Polls show Ms Le Pen is among four leading French candidates, with no clear front-runner. The top two candidates advance to a 7 May runoff.
The controversial candidate has been jostling with independent centrist Emmanuel Macron for the lead in polls, while hard-left rival Jean-luc Melenchon and conservative Francois Fillon begin to close the gap.
Scuffles between scores of opponents of Ms Le Pen’s antiimmigration National Front party and riot police broke out ahead of her rally, delaying its start.
Her campaign director announced to the crowd of thousands that a party politician Gilbert Collard had been attacked on his way in, denouncing the masked youth responsible as “extremeleft scum”. Mr Collard was unharmed.
A woman later jumped on to the stage as Ms Le Pen spoke, but was quickly wrestled to the floor and removed.
In her speech, Ms Le Pen, who says France has been subjugated by the European Union and waves of mostly Muslim immigration, called the upcoming vote “historical”.
“What is being played next Sunday is an issue of civilisation,” she said.
The race is being watched internationally as an important gauge of populist sentiment, captured notably by Ms Le Pen, with her nationalist programme presented under the slogan “In the Name of the People”.
Ms Le Pen vowed on Monday to end the borderless Schengen Treaty so France can control its frontiers and with that, she claims, stop both immigration and the terrorist threat.
“We opened the door of the house of France to the mafia, to terrorists who quickly understood the benefits they could get from our incredible powerlessness and send their soldiers of hate among the migrant flows to hit our country in the heart,” she said.
The crowd stood, cheered and chanted “On est chez nous” – “We are in our land”.
Mr Macron, the former economy minister in the Socialist government, promised an “open, confident, winning France”, painting that as a contrast to his far-right and far-left rivals.