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French policeman stabbed during gas canister auto arrests

The vehicle, a Peugeot 607, had no registration plate and its hazard lights were flashing when it was found near the Notre-Dame Cathedral.

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In the Thursday night operation in Boissy-Saint-Antoine, one of the women attacked police, and one suspect and one police officer were injured, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters.

A first couple, aged 34 and 29, were arrested on a motorway on Tuesday in southern France.

Police sources today said the auto was contained three jerry cans of diesel fuel in addition to six full canisters of gas, adding to concerns that it might have been prepared as a vehicle bomb.

Later that day, its owner went to the police to report that his is radicalized daughter was missing but without saying his auto had also disappeared, the prosecutor’s office said.

Police said earlier they were searching for the two daughters of the owner of the grey Peugeot 607 that was found abandoned on Sunday near Notre Dame cathedral, which draws millions of visitors every year.

The vehicle had no number plates and its hazard lights were flashing.

Anti-terror investigators are probing the incident which comes with France on high alert following a string of jihadist attacks, including November’s coordinated Islamic State (IS) group assaults in Paris by gunmen and suicide bombers that killed 130 people.

Speaking on Thursday, President Francois Hollande referred to attack plots that been foiled “in recent days”, without elaborating.

The missing woman is said to be 19 years old and was known to French Police for wanting to leave France for Syria.

That cylinder was found to be empty but five full cylinders were found in the boot of the auto.

“The cylinders were not connected to any kind of detonator”, the newspaper quoted unnamed police officials as saying.

Cazeneuve said on Wednesday the intentions of those arrested were as yet unknown.

The state of emergency was extended for six months after the Bastille Day attack in July, in which 86 people were killed when a truck ploughed into a crowd in Nice.

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Less than two weeks later, two young jihadists murdered a priest near the northern city of Rouen.

Notre Dame Cathedral Gargoyle