Several questions are on the table. After the arrest of five young men on Friday in Meurthe-et-Moselle, the investigations aim to “verify whether there was a terrorist project, what its state of completion was, and the target(s) if applicable,” indicates a source close to the investigation told AFP.
These five men, aged 20 to 23, were arrested in Nancy, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy and Toul and placed in police custody by the intelligence services as part of an investigation into criminal terrorist association, opened by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat). According to press information, the suspects had scouted a Christmas market.
“Extreme vigilance” for the holidays
According to a source close to the case, one of the suspects is a student, arrested in his room in a university residence. Another source indicates that the people arrested are close to the Islamist movement.
These police custody intervene while the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, called on Friday the prefects to “maintain extreme vigilance” on the occasion of the Christmas and Epiphany holidays, due to the “level very high level of the terrorist threat which continues to weigh”.