French Police Foil Terrorist Attack, Arrest Seven People

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Monday that Seven men suspected of planning a terror attack in France have been arrested by anti-terror police during a raid.

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French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve

Cazeneuve told a televised news conference that the weekend arrests of the suspects – who are of French, Moroccan and Afghan origin – enabled France to prevent a long-planned terror attack on it’s soil.

He said an investigation would show whether “the foiled attack was a coordinated attack aiming to target several sites simultaneously” in France.

The men were arrested on Saturday night in Strasbourg and Marseille after an investigation by France’s DGSI domestic intelligence service.

Cazeneuve linked the arrests to raids carried out shortly before the Euro 2016 football championship hosted by France in June.

The men were still in police custody on Sunday night, according to reports.

The suspects were awaiting the delivery of weapons, reported Le Parisien newspaper, while iTele reported that the men were already in possession of a sub-machine gun.

The police made the raid at 3am in the Meinau and Neuhof neighbourhoods.

While the intentions of the arrested men remain unclear, French media pointed to the idea that a potential target could have been the Strasbourg Christmas markets, which are scheduled to begin in few days.

The event, which saw boosted security checks after last year’s November attacks in Paris, typically draws enormous crowds.

The same market was reportedly the target of a bombing plot back in the year 2000.

France remains on edge since the November attacks in Paris last year when 130 people were killed. The country is still under a state of emergency.