Two 18-year-olds from the country’s Gironde region have been arrested on suspicion of planning one or more terrorist attacks ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the French national terrorism prosecutor’s office confirmed to CBS News on Thursday.
“The investigation relates to one or more acts of violence that may have been planned by these young people,” the prosecutor’s office said. “At this point, we are looking beyond what is being said on the internet to verify the substance of the project and, if applicable, its success.”
Prosecutors told CBS News that one man was arrested on Tuesday in the Gironde department in southwestern France, hundreds of miles from Paris, and the other was arrested while traveling on Thursday.
French and Brazilian police officers patrol in Paris on July 22, 2024, ahead of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Abdul Saboor/Reuters
France has been on high alert in the final weeks of preparations, with authorities making numerous arrests and foiling numerous plots to sabotage the Olympics, the Associated Press reported.
According to the Associated Press, a Russian man was arrested earlier this week and charged with “espionage at the behest of a foreign power” with the aim of “inciting hostile acts in France.”
Prosecutors said a search of the suspect’s home “raised concerns that he may intend to organize events that could destabilize the Olympics.”
“We have a list of threats that we are particularly focused on, including cyber threats,” national police spokeswoman Sonia Fibouillet told The Associated Press.
Such threats “can consist of fake news, disinformation or online campaigns using bots to amplify and mass-disseminate news,” Fibrill said.
In one example, a video that appeared to show a Hamas threat to the Olympics was shared on social media, but was found to be fake by French intelligence and denied by Hamas on social media.
Frank Andrews contributed to this report.
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