A 16-year-old-girl and three men were arrested Friday in cities across France in a foiled terror attack, according to a statement by the interior minister.
A partially assembled improvised explosive device was also found as part of the investigation, the statement from Bruno Le Roux said.
Le Roux praised the work of investigators that led to the arrests, “among them three directly suspected of preparing a violent attack against our territory.”
The arrests in Montpellier, Clapiers and Marseillan follow a two-week investigation led by the anti-terrorist division of the Paris Public Prosecutor in collaboration with the judicial police of Montpellier and the national police force, the statement said.
The announcement came a week after a soldier shot a man wielding a machete near the Louvre museum in Paris. French authorities opened a terror investigation after police said the man, a 29-year-old Egyptian and a resident of the United Arab Emirates, wielded the knife and shouted “Allahu akbar,” an Arabic phrase that translates to “God is greatest.” One soldier was injured.
France has been under a state of emergency since the Paris terror attacks in November 2015, in which 130 people were killed and hundreds injured in massacres at a theater, a stadium and cafes. That January, 17 people were killed in attacks in Paris on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and at a kosher grocery store, and in the Paris suburb of Montrouge.
Last July, a radicalized Tunisian plowed a 20-ton truck into crowds on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice during a Bastille Day celebration, killing 86 people and injuring 200 others.
