Investigators believe an ISIL operative had been in contact with one of the women arrested last week in connection to a vehicle found abandoned a week ago near Notre Dame cathedral, a major tourist draw in central Paris.
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One of the women, identified as 23-year old Sarah H., had ties to French nationals who killed three people in recent terror attacks on French soil, Paris Prosecutor François Molins told a news conference.
According to investigators, her fingerprints were found in the Peugeot vehicle which was discovered abandoned last Sunday a few hundred metres (yards) from Notre Dame with five gas cylinders and three bottles of diesel fuel inside.
A 15-year-old boy has been arrested in Paris suspected of preparing imminent “violent action”, two judicial sources said, the second alleged plot with links to the Islamic State (IS) group discovered in France this week.
She was also known to authorities for seeking to travel to Syria.
The boy had already been under house arrest due to France’s state of emergency in which dozens of people are under special watch, said the official who was not authorised to speak publicly about the arrest and asked not to be named.
He has been linked to at least one of the two teen jihadists who executed an elderly priest in a Normandy church in July.
Ornella G. was remanded in custody after being charged with association with a terrorist group and attempted murder by an organised group, prosecutors said. “Where are the brothers?.She brandished a knife and she hit a policeman.Where are the men?”
“Each time I say those words, because it’s my role, I realise the importance and gravity of it”.
France is facing the “maximum threat” from terrorists both inside and outside the country, he said. “Every day intelligence services, police foil attacks, dismantle networks, track terrorists”.
Security is one of the hot issues in early campaigning for next year’s presidential elections.
“We are involved in an extremely intense, round-the-clock mission to protect the French public, and we are getting results”, Cazeneuve said. A series of attacks targeting young concert-goers, soccer fans and Parisians enjoying a Friday night out at popular nightspots killed over 100 people in the deadliest violence to strike France since World War II.
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Sources did not reveal why the teenager was under house arrest.
