A vehicle belonging to someone on the French intelligence services watchlist was found with several gas cylinders near the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on Saturday, police said.
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France is on alert after a deadly string of Islamic State group attacks and threats against landmarks.
This brought the number of people in custody over the incident to seven, according to Reuters.
Five explosions could be heard as police moved into the house where the three women were holed-up. The condition of the police officer is unknown.
French Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the three women arrested – aged 39, 23 and 19 – “had been radicalised, were fanatics and were in all likelihood preparing an imminent, violent act”. “It requires the vigilance of all our compatriots”.
An official says the couple that owned the auto has been taken into custody.
The 19-year-old woman was injured when another policeman opened fire after his colleague was stabbed during the operation to arrest her and two others over the discovery of a gas canister filled auto. He was briefly detained and then released.
A notebook containing writing in Arabic was also found in the auto, according to the mayor of the district of Paris where the vehicle was found.
Police sources had said on Tuesday that no detonator device was found in the auto, but the presence of diesel-filled cannisters added to concerns that there had been a plan to explode the vehicle.
No detonators were found in the auto, which had been left on a narrow cobbled street in the popular Latin Quarter next to bars and restaurants.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said Thursday that police arrested a couple – a 27-year-old man and a 26-year-old woman – a day earlier in the Loiret region of France, south of Paris.
The two men, who are brothers, and the two women were transferred to Paris to be questioned by investigators trained in counterterrorism.
Police briefly detained and questioned the auto owner before letting him go, the prosecutor’s office said.
Authorities are allowed to hold terror suspects for up to four days without charges.
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Earlier police arrested two couples in connection with the discovery of the vehicle, which was found in the heart of the French capital.
