France foils terror attack

PARIS: A terror plot was foiled last week in the French region of Orleans, southwest of Paris, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Tuesday, as the government prepared constitutional changes to enshrine emergency police powers.
“A planned attack targeting representatives of state forces in the Orleans region was foiled last week by the DGSI (France’s internal intelligence agency),” Cazeneuve said.
Two French citizens aged 20 and 24 were arrested on December 19, he said. The older has a police record for petty crime.
A police source said one was originally from Morocco and the other from Togo.
They were “in contact with a French radical in Syria and the investigation ought to establish if he ordered the attacks that one of the two arrested men has admitted they were planning to carry out against soldiers, police and representatives of the state,” Cazeneuve said.
“These arrests are the result of meticulous work by our intelligence services and bring the number of attacks foiled on the national territory since 2013 to 10,” he added.
He also said that 3,414 people had been turned away from France’s borders since a state of emergency was introduced in the wake of last month’s Paris attacks, which left 130 people dead.