François Hollande has warned that the terrorist threat in France remains very high after four people believed to have militant Islamist ties were arrested in dawn raids in the Paris area on suspicion of planning attacks in the French capital.
Three men and a woman were arrested in the north of Paris but the investigation was focused on one of them: a 28-year-old French man who has been under house arrest since 29 February under the special provisions of France’s state of emergency.
He had been sentenced to five years in prison in March 2014 after being arrested two years earlier when he tried to leave France for Syria. The French TV station TF1 reported that he had been released in October last year.
The man was arrested on Wednesday with his partner in Seine-Saint-Denis on the north-east edge of Paris. Two French brothers of Turkish family origin were also arrested at the same time in a northern arrondissement.
“We have information about one person that suggests that he could undertake violent actions in France,” the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said, adding that the man was thought to have ties with Islamic State in Syria.
Cazeneuve said: “This person was arrested this morning along with people linked with him.”
He warned against jumping to the conclusion that an attack was imminent, saying police checks were under way.
French media reported that police seized computer equipment and an unused cartridge for an automatic rifle.
“The threat level remains very high,” said Hollande. “(...) We know that we are a target. France was also the target in what happened in Ivory Coast,” he said referring to Sunday’s assault on a beach resort near Abidjan that left 19 dead, four of them French nationals.
Meanwhile, police in Belgium continued to hunt for two suspects who fled a Brussels flat after a shootout on Tuesday during a raid linked to November’s Paris attacks.
Police shot dead a gunman during the raid in the Brussels neighbourhood of Forest. The gunman was identified as Mohamed Belkaïd, a 35-year-old Algerian living illegally in Belgium. He was shot dead by a police sniper as he prepared to fire at officers from a window.
“Next to his body was a Kalashnikov, a book on Salafism and an Islamic State flag,” said Thierry Werts, of the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office.
The flat in southern Brussels also contained a large cache of ammunition, investigating prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt said.
Belkaïd had previously only been known to police for a case of theft in 2014.
The anti-terror raid in Brussels came as French and Belgian police continue to investigate the 13 November gun-and-bombing attacks on a stadium, Paris cafes and a rock concert.
The Paris attacks, which were claimed by Isis, are believed to have been partly prepared and coordinated in Brussels.
Belgian officials said that since the attacks, 58 people have been arrested in the direct investigation and another 23 arrested in related inquiries.
The Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, said the country’s terror alert would stay at the second highest level, “which means a threat is possible and likely”.
Michel called on residents to “stay calm and cool-headed”. He told broadcaster RTL: “The investigation continues and the danger remains.”