A planned “Islamist-inspired” attack targeting the football events of the 2024 Olympic Games was foiled in Saint-Étienne, in east-central France, and a Chechen suspect was charged, the authorities announced on Friday. French authorities.
This is the third attack foiled since the start of the year in France and, according to the Ministry of the Interior, the “first” against the Paris Olympics, which will be held from July 26 to August 11.
On May 22, French intelligence services carried out in Saint-Étienne “the arrest of an 18-year-old Chechen national suspected of wanting to commit an Islamist-inspired attack on national soil,” the ministry announced in a communicated.
The suspect was charged last Sunday with leading a terrorist criminal association with a view to preparing crimes of harm to persons and placed in pre-trial detention, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) told AFP.
“He is accused of having, in the name of the jihadist ideology of the Islamic State, considered committing violent action, in particular by targeting gatherings of supporters, on the sidelines of sporting events to be held in Saint-Étienne during the Olympic Games,” added the same source.
“The first elements show that he was actively preparing an attack against the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium”, the city’s football stadium, according to the ministry.
“Having seen that the stadium was too secure”, he “wanted to attack spectators outside, near the refreshment stands, near the cafes”, detailed the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, during a briefing press.
He wanted “then to “die as a martyr”, these are his words, after a fight with the police,” added Mr. Darmanin.
The young man was “not known to the intelligence services, not known to the police services,” the minister said. “There was nothing to suggest that he was radicalized,” he continued, adding that he wanted to take action with “fairly artisanal means.”
His brother, a minor, was also arrested, Mr. Darmanin said, but his “responsibility was ruled out”. “There are no other short-term arrests in this matter,” added the minister, affirming that “this is not an organization.”
The city of Saint-Étienne is to host six football matches during the Olympics, including meetings with the United States or Ukraine team for men and with the French team for women.
North Causase
This is, still according to Interior, the 50e attack foiled by intelligence services since 2017.
Since 2018, several terrorism cases, including three attacks, have involved jihadists in France from Russian republics in the North Caucasus, mainly from Chechnya.
The knife attack in the Opera district of Paris in May 2018 by Khamzat Azimov, the assassination in the Paris suburbs of a teacher, Samuel Paty, in October 2020 by Abdoullakh Anzorov and, on October 13, the of another professor, Dominique Bernard, in Arras (north) by Mohammed Mogouchkov all have in common that they were committed by radicalized young people from the North Caucasus.
This latest attack, committed by a Russian accused of radicalization and targeting this teacher, caused great emotion in France. It was invoked by Gérald Darmanin to give a security boost to his law on immigration, adopted at the start of the year.
Friday, the minister congratulated the intelligence services, which “once again demonstrate their full mobilization and their effectiveness in the fight against terrorism” in the run-up to the Olympics, a global event which will be the subject of a security system pharaonic.
The organizing committee for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games also praised on Friday the “efficiency” and “exceptional mobilization” of the French intelligence services, stressing that “security is the number 1 priority for Paris-2024”.